


Auraelias

by Firestarter89



Series: Auraelias [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Multi, Original work - Freeform, Other, Romance, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:32:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6282919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firestarter89/pseuds/Firestarter89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For thousands of years, the Kingdom of Auraelias has lived in relative peace. Their power knew no limit, their army had no end of glorious tales to regale one with. However... enemies rally on their borders to bring corruption and chaos to the land and it's subjects, and with the King's strength failing, so too is the power of Auraelias. They are as a dying star, fading in light and purity. In the midst of all this turmoil, lies a Princess. When a plot to destroy her kingdom comes to light, Nadia must decide whether to follow her father's advice and stay at home with him, or to follow her heart and abandon the capitol to find and put an end to the conflict threatening her home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

This story begins, as most others do, with a man, his wife, and their child. Or lack thereof. I record this now so that others may read it and remember the very true events that I have witnessed as a scribe to the royal throne. It was at least 3200 years since the forests had felt the last scorching breath of dragonfire. The 7th Era began when the land of Auraelias fell under the rule of a new king, Ivan the Conqueror. His army ended the anarchy that broke out when the last king, his brother, was discovered to practice necromancy and was overthrown by an outraged populace. Soon after he was coronated as King, Ivan married and all were only too happy to accept the return to normalcy, believing the line would endure in the heirs that Queen Brenna would provide.

For about two decades, the chaos that the anarchy of King Demitri’s murder caused was slow to die out. The majority of the populace was willing to let their anger abate. However, there were a few groups of bandits and rebels that continued to cause trouble and the new King had his hands full trying to bring them to justice. When they were finally drawn out and made to pay for their crimes, the chaotic change in rulers finally came to a close and the King could focus on other things. Like the fact that, in two decades, his wife had yet to bear him an heir. Not for lack of trying, I’m told.

In the early years, there was much celebrating of the marriage and the end of the raids that had terrorized the public in recent years happening throughout the kingdom. All of their subjects rejoiced in the consumption of fine wines and exuberant dance. Over time, the years whittled away and the novelty and excitement of having new royals wore off, as the populace fell back into sobriety and continued about their everyday lives.

Things remained relatively peaceful for another fifteen winters. However, at the dawn of the second decade, unrest began to sour the kingdom. It had been so long without word from the queen on whether they would have a new heir or not. Soon, that unrest strengthened into worry, and then into depression. Still, there was no word and no change.

The King and Queen were growing frantic, but were determined to keep their struggles private… or as private as they could with the eyes of the entire kingdom trained upon them. What had started out as a fun and happy life together had soon developed in a way that mirrored the worsening mood of their citizens. Especially as time continued to march onwards and there was still no heir. Queen Brenna’s fertility wouldn’t last forever, after all. Over the years, each attempt was met with failure and the growing pressure to produce an heir drove them both to drastic measures. They began trying all sorts of things said to help fertility in the bedroom, but nothing seemed to work.

They even went on a pilgrimage to the temple of the four seasons, visiting temples dedicated to each of our four gods on the way. At each stop, they performed the ritual of prayer, praying that at least one of the four gods would grant their desire for a child. But the gods were silent, as always, and they returned to the capital with nothing gained for their efforts.

One day, out of desperation, the king heard of an old crone that may have held the key to their misfortune. He deliberated for some time, remembering that such a mysterious venture had led his brother to Necromancy, and death soon after. I was helping the king scribe a letter to the duchess of Hilge’Aren when the Queen begged him to seek out this woman. She truly believed she would die without ever having a child and this frightened her into seeking out what she believed was their last hope.

Ivan loved his Queen. It is my firm belief that no two monarchs were ever as happy together as they were. To see the tenderness with which they gazed upon each other. It is to hear stories of spring in the darkest, coldest winter when starvation clings to the ribs and all is lost aside from a bone-chilling frost. I digress.

King Ivan agreed, her fear was his fear, and so he bade his queen goodbye and traveled to meet this elderly hermit. His journey took him to an old hut at the very edge of his kingdom. At first, the old Crone turned him away, for she was frightened of revealing the things she had hidden away. Ivan had come prepared, however, and she was persuaded to tell him what she knew when he offered her a hefty sack of gold coins.

She gave to him a book of spells, full of forgotten magic from a forgotten time. The king was learned in the magical arts and he knew it immediately. Copies of this particular Grimoire were known to appear throughout history. Whether someone took the time to copy the contents into different leatherbound tomes, or if the book was enchanted to never truly be destroyed even though it is recorded as burned each time it crops up… he was unsure, and the reappearance of Alfonse’s infamous Grimoire was unnerving to the King. At first he was inclined to refuse her. However, remembering his lover’s desperate plea, he decided to take the mystical tome and read it’s secrets.

The book was rare, for this was a time some three-hundred years after the banning of the practice of necromancy. The ruling King of that age had all tomes relating to necromancy burned shortly after Alfonse’s defeat. Any book that had anything to do with the subject was taken to the pyre if its owner dared to let it pop into public eye. He whisked it home discreetly and thus began his descent.

For weeks upon his return, he poured over the tome, hungrily gleaning every bit of forbidden knowledge he could from it’s dusty pages. He became obsessed with it. That is the word, but it isn’t strong enough to describe the fervor that overcame my king. The Grimoire twisted his mind until all that was left of his mind was occult practices. He would only see the queen and a select group of servants, including myself.

I believe the gods scoured the planet of the knowledge of Necromancy on purpose. I believe some knowledge should stay undiscovered, that things are forbidden for a reason. I felt evil in him, a madness such that I had never known before. I did as I was told and kept my head down, but gods forgive me for what I witnessed in that room.

At last, he found what he was looking for. Among the cursed pages was a spell that would allow him to create a child. The whole kingdom rejoiced at the news that their rulers would finally be having an heir, assuming simply that the Queen was pregnant. Queen Brenna agreed to the ritual, desperate as she was to provide an heir for the throne, to provide her beloved with the child that, in truth, they both desired. So, they began to prepare.

They gathered the necessary items to complete the spell. This took several days to complete for it called for an awful lot of weird and grotesque items, like the stomach of a cat, heart of a raven, things that were definitely considered occult and would need to be collected discreetly.

After weeks of studying and practicing the spell’s incantation in secret, the king was soon ready to try it on his wife. Finally, on a moonless night, they began the ritual.

Now, if Ivan had truly understood the nature of the spell he was casting, he might not have done it. As it was, he was so ready to be a father that he was willing to try anything, hang the risks. He forewent the precautions and had me mix the ingredients before him while swaying and chanting and not realizing what he was truly doing until it was too late. If I had not feared my head would roll if I refused to partake in this depravity, I would not have.

He drew his dagger and sealed the spells casting by drawing the sharp blade across his arm. As his blood poured over the writhing body of his wife, powering the spell, the scent of it being cast caught the attention of an ancient and purely arcane dragon.

Legend tells of these beasts collecting the souls of the dead and bringing them to Aurial to be judged. The beast was so powerful that it's magical force created a massive earthquake just by appearing in the physical form before him. The tremors cracked the very stone the city was built upon and the capital collapsed into a crater.  
_The devastation was so cataclysmic that the citizens are still attempting to recover from it, over a century later._ -An addendum written by Mortimer Thirund, Head Scribe of the royal court, 7:123 Conquest

Dragons are not known to show mercy. The punishment for Ivan’s attempted transgression against nature was swift and deliberate. The massive beast’s claws tore into the queen, tearing her soul away from her body. Before the king could cry out for help, it had dived through the floor, dragging the queen's screaming soul with it. In the silence that followed, it is said, the king realized exactly what he had done, and recoiled from the idea that his now dead beloved wife was his fault.

Some say, he went totally insane that night, others claim the madness took hold slowly, growing over time. I was there, and I heard his anguished scream, and I can tell you it was the final crack in an already shattered man. Ivan shut himself away, demanding not to be disturbed and when the Sisters came to perform the funeral service for the Queen, he turned them away. Refusing to let them cremate her body as is our custom. He spent the rest of the year and all of the next performing all manner of ritual he knew to try and perform, layering spells on top of spells to summon the soul of his beloved back to the body she had left behind. I worried for my king, having witnessed the depravity that desperation and necromancy had driven him to.

Even I had no idea what would happen next. King Ivan went into a furious rage, pouring whatever he had left of his sanity into performing every ritual that cursed book could give him, and every summoning spell he knew to perform… and with each failure, a little more of his sanity eroded away and the darker his path became.

What he knew, but refused to accept, was that Queen Brenna was beyond the reach of any spell. The spells he was casting were specifically designed to shatter the laws of nature. Even though he did not ultimately succeed with his intended plan, what he ended up creating was beyond his or anyone’s comprehension.

It is said that on the day the princess opened her eyes, the goddess, Aurial, wept tears of joy and where the rain fell upon her body, it trickled down, breathing life and beauty into the queen's rotting corpse. The decomposing flesh turned whole and warm and supple, yet hard as diamonds.

Brenna rose as a beautiful maiden, her features the same, and yet… she was different somehow. When Ivan greeted her, she did not remember his face. She did not reciprocate his affection, and this confused and angered Ivan.

When he realized what he had done to her, he was horrified. He had summoned a soul to live in the body of his dead wife. A soul that did not carry memories of him and their time together.

Over time, it became apparent there were other consequences to what he had done. She was gifted with a second life and cursed to live a half-life. She had been reborn as an immortal that was neither alive or dead and could never age or die. She was doomed to make friends, watch them age, and live, grow, and yes, even die… whereas she would be left frozen in a timeless existence, an everlasting perfection, forced to mourn for eternity the fleeting joys of all those she would love and cherish.

The king fell to his knees in shock and despair at this phenomenon. So in awe of her terrible beauty was he, that he failed to notice the abomination she truly was until much later and even then, the realization was a slow one. Upon her immediate formation, he was simply blinded by her magnificence. I was too, she was... awe inspiring. However, the success was soon soured by the fact that, though she may have looked like the queen, she had no recollection of his face or the memories they spent together. Whatever had animated her body had not brought the correct memories back with it. He would see that beautiful smile again and be able to touch her soft, flawless skin, but the love and adoration that once lit up her face when she laid eyes upon him was gone. the smile was empty at it's core, and while she was as nice as she had always been, her mind was wiped clean. She remembered nothing and he remembered everything. A cruel fate to lay upon anyone's shoulders, much less the King's, whose mind was already drawn fragile by his ordeal thus far.

He was sound enough to realize that he would be prosecuted as a necromancer if any of his subjects discovered her or what she truly was. None of them would accept her if they knew, none of them would understand. Not even a King could overcome the massive outrage of the people should they find out about his rituals, as his brother found out the hard way.

Thus, he shut her away from prying eyes and though he told them he had a daughter at the expense of the good queen's life, he refused to let them see her until she was of age. Though they protested this decree vehemently at first, over time, the people simply went on about their business and lived their lives as they normally would, with or without a princess. Although they did mourn the loss of their queen.

Every year since, the capital hosts a great feast to honor her memory. The festivities are a joyful affair, for the citizens chose to celebrate her life rather than mourn her death. After all, she would have wanted it that way, they argued. The king was too busy raising his “daughter” to correct them, and soon the festivities became a kingdom-wide holiday.

_As written by Remelus Drang  
Head Scribe of the Royal Court, Circa 6:989-7:23 Conquest_


	2. Ominous Peace

It was a cold and rainy day in a castle half buried by a mountain, and surrounded by a sprawling, gleaming city nestled in a crater. The diamond citadel at the north edge acted as a beacon even in this drab weather. Distant church bells rang above the din of rain lashing against crystal windows, and the occasional rumble of thunder rattled through the hallways.

This was not the first storm Polaris had weathered through, though it was the longest in living memory. For four solid weeks, the sun had barely shone on the townsfolk, hidden beyond a blanket of dreary grey clouds. At first, it hadn’t worried anyone. A few days of rain was manageable, after all. Those few days had turned into weeks, however, and so much rain had flooded most of the crops and killed much of the season’s harvest.

Many of the people would be going hungry this winter, which would open up the possibility that a plague was coming. The church bells didn’t have to sound for long before people were rushing inside. They would leave their offerings on the shrine of the god they thought most likely to safeguard their fate in the coming cold.

They had four gods to choose from. Aurial in the North wing, Demetri in the East, Firenze in the West, and Sheza in the South. The shrine settled in the north wing was the one most lavishly decorated with offerings. The east and western shrines had the second most amount of offerings laid out. Though in order to stop the rain, most people were flocking to Demitri today. The god of time had many things to be supposedly in charge of, and weather was one of them.

In the East Wing the procession went, where they would get down on their knees in groups to fill the room. A priest would oversee a mass prayer and then they would get up, lay down their offerings on the altar, and then join the procession that was leaving.

The line of people was actually splitting in half with some of the temple-goers heading to the eastern shrine, and the other half heading towards the western shrine. Since one of the many Festivals dedicated to Firenze was meant to be happening now, many thought the god of passion and art should clear away the rain so the festival could happen in a proper way, with artisans selling their wares, and many dancing, feasting, and lovemaking happening in the street. The rain was preventing all of this, and so many people believed they owed the god an apology that they were not as festive as they were normally.

Sometime in the afternoon, a hooded figure would join the crowd headed inside the church. They were obviously female by the look of the curves which the cloak could not really hide, but her face is completely hidden in shadow. One thing about her that some people noticed was that she was armed. A sheathed sword was strapped to her belt. It caused those that noticed it to give her a bit more space.

She followed the crowd inside and headed toward the western wing to pray for a clear sky tomorrow so that at least for one day, they could celebrate the festival the way it was supposed to be celebrated.

As she reached the altar and breathed in the scent of the musky incense, she felt her body relax as a result of the aromas wafting about her. She realized what was about to start here and would hastily finish her prayer and retreat from the western wing. Her cheeks flushed from the experience. Firenze was the god of passion, and his rituals almost always featured a sexual rite. The incense served to heighten the desires of those that came to the sermon. She especially wanted to leave before the sermon started and the virgin sacrifice (in which a maiden’s virginity was sacrificed) began.

The woman had never been one for public displays of affection, ritual or otherwise. She struggled through the crowd until she was closer to the southern exit. She’d been jostled around somehow trying to go against the flow of people. It was quiet here, as no one else had entered this wing to pray.

Green eyes looked up at the obsidian features of the forgotten Goddess from under a shadowy hood. She studied the altar and drew her hand through the layer of dust, blowing it away with a deep breath which ended in a cough as a cloud rose up from her efforts and settled again. The goddess stood crouched over like a wild animal. She wore fur skins and brandished a spear from which fox teeth and owl feathers hung from. She wore a necklace of animal bones and, upon her back were two molting vulture wings.

The woman knew this was the Shrine to Sheza- the goddess of death and change. Once upon a time, Sheza had been revered as much as her fellow pantheons were revered, because she had gifted all mortals with the power of magic. The ability to fundamentally change reality around them.

Then, countless centuries ago, a powerful mage by the name of Alfonse abused his ability, summoning demons into the bodies of those laid to rest, and soiling the gift that Sheza had given him as he attempted to raise an army of corpses to conquer all of the known world. He was defeated of course, but with the discovery of Necromancy, the people began to demonize Sheza, blaming her and her gift for what almost came to pass. She was reviled, her temple was set ablaze, her shrines were sorely neglected... No one worshiped her openly anymore for fear of being labeled a necromancer. As such, her altar was empty save for a burnt out stick of incense that one of the priests had laid out to placate the goddess.

As she stood, staring up at the statue, she wondered what it would feel like to be the matron of all magic and then to have someone abuse that gift so thoroughly as to cause herself to be hated, neglected, forgotten… a deep sense of sadness filled her mind and she bowed her head to the statue. _Please, if you can still hear me, stop the rain so that my people can survive the winter._

She was pulled out of her quiet thoughts when the sound of approaching feet clacked against the marble tiled floor in the hallway. Thinking fast, the woman hid behind a curtain as the footsteps rushed passed without pausing at all.

Only when the footsteps faded off did she dare come out again. Deciding it was better to leave, she left the southern wing and joined the queue for the exit. Outside, she squinted in the rain and checked that the wind wasn’t going to pull her hood back. She descended the steps where her horse, Shadowfall was waiting for her. The black stallion had gathered a crowd.

“Idn’ that the princess's horse, mummy?” Asked a child as he paused and tugged on his mother’s skirt. The woman lifted her dirty face and looked at where her son was pointing. She nodded.

“I s'pose he could be. Where’s the princess though, I wonder?” She asked. The hooded figure would grin to herself as she heard this. She mounted the stallion and took up his reins.

“Guess it was just a servant takin’ ‘im out fer a walk.” The woman shrugged and pulled her son along home as horse and rider trotted down the busy streets.

When they reached the castle, A man in full armor was waiting for them. He was a tall man, easily six feet, and his physique, being a knight, was rather muscular. He had icy blue eyes and dark, messy hair that fell in a disorderly shag. He watched the stallion and his rider walk up to the barn and as a servant came to take Shadowfalls reins, she dismounted and his frown deepened.

“Enjoy your joy ride?” He asked. He didn’t sound as mad as he looked. Definitely more exasperated than anything. The woman laughed and pulled her hood down. This act released a wave of curly blonde hair that fell down her back in a mess of wispy ringlets. It also exposed more about her features than just her face. She was fair of skin but lightly tanned, with freckles peppering her face, shoulders, and forearms. She had emerald green eyes that looked at the world with willful joy and mischief in mind, and her beauty was apparent in all these things.

“Yes.” She said simply as she walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.  
“Have fun looking for me?” She teased before pecking her lips to his stubble. He grabbed her wrists with a sigh.  
“Nadia, you can’t keep running off on your own. I’m charged to protect you from harm. I took a solemn oath, damn it.”

 _Clang!_ Nadia had drawn her sword and shoved him away before she swung it at him. Their swords clashed in midair as Marcus defended himself, catching a beam that supported the roof of the barn yo stop himself from falling on his rump. For a moment, they looked at each other… then Marcus smirked. While Shadow was being seen to by the stable hands, they danced about the yard, their swords clanging together as they sparred. For a time, it seemed like they were on equal ground with each other in terms of skill.

As they sparred, it soon became clear who the better fencer was, as Nadia skillfully parried his lunge and, with a twirl of her blade, ripped the sword right out of his hands. Marcus looked at her, panting for breath as respect dawned in his gaze. He looked down in shame and Nadia scoffed.

“Don’t be like that.” She handed him back his sword and they both sheathed their blades.  
“When did you get so good?” Marcus asked, curiously.  
“I learned from the best.” This made Marcus blush and Nadia laughed.

As she spoke, she stepped away from him and walked up to where shadow was eating his oats and corn in his stall. She would lean against the door and reach out to pet his neck as he ate.

“Were you ever actually as helpless as Ivan thinks you are?” Marcus asked as he walked over to the stall door and stood beside her.

Nadia thought for a moment before her brow furrowed.

“I think so? Everyone was a child at some point. Just because I don’t remember being a child doesn’t mean I was never one. Right?” She took his hand and their fingers interlaced. Her confused expression made her sound like she was trying to convince herself of that just as much as she was trying to convince him.

“I guess so…”

The conversation lapsed for a bit as they watched Shadow settle down in his stall. An hour later, the stable hands were closing up the barn for the night, which meant princess and bodyguard were ushered out. They headed back up towards the castle together, hand in hand.

“So what exactly were you doing out there?” He asked as they walked up to the castle together.  
“Praying. I visited the temple and asked the gods to give us a sunny day.” she smiled.  
“Did they answer?”  
“No.”  
“As usual.”  
“But I asked for it tomorrow. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Marcus looked at her with a smirk. “True. I’ve got a twenty piece that say nothing happens.”  
Nadia glanced at him and snorted. “Alright, fine. You’re on.”

They spent the rest of the walk joking and laughing as best friends do, though their jovial mood was soured when they entered the castle and one of the servants came to get Nadia’s wet cloak and whisk it away to the wash.

“Welcome home, milady," she said with a quick curtsy. "The king said ‘e wants to see you when you get in.” Then she walked away with the damp cloak.

Nadia and Marcus looked at each other.  
“What could that old bat want this time?” She wondered aloud. Nadia couldn't help the amount of distaste that seeped into her tone but she was glad her father was out of earshot at that particular moment.

“Weeell…. I kind of told him you were missing.” Marcus said, scratching sheepishly at the back of his neck. The way he looked at her, Nadia could tell he expected her to punch him again. The idea was sorely tempting, but she didn't have time, nor did she want to meet with her father while her knuckles were pounding, it would only make the situation that much more unbearable.

“Oh. _Marvelous._ ” She sighed, rubbing at her temples to assuage the oncoming headache she could tell she was going to have in a few hours from now.

Reluctantly, they parted ways and Nadia went to go see what her father wanted. She wandered up to her father’s bedchambers where he was holed up lately, dread filling her up a little more with each step she took. The last time she had run off, he lectured her for over an hour. She had no idea what was in store for her this time, considering his punishments were wildly inconsistent. _Please let it just be a lecture. Pleeease._ She didn’t think she could stand another full hour of listening to him rant on in a delirious rage about how she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without informing him first, but it was admittedly preferable to some of his other punishments that she had been subjected to over the years.

 

***

King Ivan had not been seen by the people for some time. Most attributed this to his failing health. After all, he was pushing 100 these days, and as an elderly man, it was hardly surprising that he kept to himself alone in his room. Much of the day to day was handled by his daughter.

Some citizens had taken to calling her Queen Nadia, since she was far more involved in ruling the kingdom than he was, even though she had no real authority- she could not declare war, nor did she have any real power over the movements of the guards, unless they belonged to her personal guard.

The truth was that the king was sick. He was confined to his bed where he wrote letters for his generals, giving them orders from his bedchambers. The only reason he was still alive was thanks to the longevity potions that Nadia would make for him, following an old recipe he taught her when she was much younger of mind and heart.

He was sitting up in bed when she knocked on the door. A quill held in his wizened hand paused mid quill-stroke as he glanced up. His other hand repositioned a pair of gold, full moon spectacles on his nose so that he could see who was knocking on the door. She peeked in and saw him smile, his wrinkled lips cracking as he motioned her to come in.

“Ah, yes. Nadia. I trust you got my message then?”  
She closed the door behind her and nodded. “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”  
He did not answer her at first, but motioned to a chair at the foot of his bed.

“Sit.”

She didn’t waste time arguing, but crossed the room to sit down in the chair he offered. The amount of dread she felt was making it hard to concentrate and the fact that he was not really talking to her made it worse. For a time, the only sound was the scratch of the quill against the parchment as he wrote his letter and Nadia waited for him to speak. The seconds ticked away into minutes, and Nadia began to let her thoughts wander.

She cast her gaze awkwardly around the room, looking at all the things her father had collected over the decades as king. Some of the items were priceless treasures taken from his days exploring the sea, others were simply gifts brought to him from far away lands as peace offerings. Her eyes fell upon the skin of a frostback wyvern, the white dragonhide was hanging up on the wall like a tapestry, the spikes along the shoulders had been filed down for safety reasons- the wyvern’s horns secreted a poisonous substance that, if cut into the bloodstream, could have a human puking their guts out in seconds.

Beside it was a table with an urn set upon it. A long time ago, she had opened the urn to have it scream at her. Apparently, it was supposed to be the ashes of a banshee, that would loose a terrible, blood-curdling shriek if they were ever disturbed. Since Banshees were only known to inhabit the island of Cornia, and the island of Ren right next to it, to own the remains of one was considered a rarity…. though why anyone would want an urn that screams at you, Nadia would never understand.

There seemed to be no real theme with the items on display around his bedchambers, most of them seemed to be worthless, though Ivan continuously insisted they were priceless artifacts. To his credit, there were actually a few items here that were worth a small fortune… like that wyvern skin, but mostly, it just seemed like the hoard of a senile old man.

“I hear you went out among the people again today.” He said at last as he poured wax over the fold of an envelope and stamped it with the royal crest.

Nadia looked up at him, her thoughts reverting back to the present moment.  
“Yes, sir.” She nodded.

“I also hear you left your bodyguard behind.” His tone made her flinch. King Ivan was still studying his letter as he wrote out the address of the receiver. Nadia wished he would look at her, but also wished he wouldn’t.

“Yes, sir.” She felt a twinge of shame as she continued. “But I only went down to pray at the temple. Surely, I don’t need an entourage-”  
“Silence.”

Nadia fell silent at once and looked down at her hands. She dared to peek through her bangs and her confidence withered away at the stare he was giving her.

A sigh parted his lips and Nadia knew instantly what was about to happen. Before his health had confined him to the mattress, a hand would have struck her cheek at this point. As it was, his lectures were just as bad. He had a knack for making her feel three inches tall. She would sit on the chair not moving or saying a word, staring resolutely at her knees while he yelled at her for a solid hour.

When the tirade finally ended, she was trembling.  
“.... I deeply apologize, sir. It won’t happen again.”

Standing up, she left the room, shutting the door behind her and heading back down towards her own room. She was hardly aware of where she was putting her feet, and if her cheeks weren’t wet she wouldn’t even be aware that she was crying.

Nadia was genuinely sick of this. The tears she shed were angry tears. She was the one running this kingdom, she was the one doing most of his duties. She was the one taking care of him. Yet, he still treated her as if she were made of glass. A pretty figurine to be looked upon, and dusted only when guests arrived. That fact was frustrating to no end. She had been toying with the idea of running away for a long time now. Her only hesitance existed in the idea of how childish it sounded for her to get mad like this and run away. Maybe it was a bit immature, but how much of this was she meant to be able to take before she, too, went mad?

She marched towards her room with a new purpose, wiping the tears away from her cheeks with an angry swipe of her sleeve.

“Hey, Nadia. Uh… Nadia?”  
She didn’t pause to acknowledge Marcus as she passed him standing outside her door. She barged through the archway with a sob and started gathering up some of her most precious belongings, throwing them on her bed. As she picked up her diary, a hand grabbed her arm. She struggled but she was no match for the strength of her bodyguard and as Marcus pulled her into a hug, she found herself squeezed against his armored chest.

“Le’go…. I can’t stay here anymore.” She muttered against his arm. She was still trying to struggle away from him but he held her fast.  
“No can do, princess. You need a hug.” She gave a noncommittal grunt and tried to push away from him again, to no avail.  
“Come on. Are you feeling it yet?” Nadia sighed and after one more futile shove, she gave up, just standing there limply as he hugged her.

“Ugh… fine. You win.” She still didn’t move to hug him back, but at least she had stopped trying to get away from him. When that happened, he actually did relax his hold on her and they sat on the edge of her bed together.

“So… what did Ivan want?”  
“Same as usual. It was the ‘You’re still a child and need to be protected’ speech. Though he added in an excerpt from the ‘I’m disappointed in your behaviour, you need to start acting like a royal’ speech too.” She scoffed with disdain as she spoke. Marcus’s expression mirrored her emotions, though when he spoke, his tone was sagely.

“Well, running away from your problems doesn’t fix them. It just puts them out of sight temporarily.” He said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want to visit our secret spot?”

Nadia blushed as she considered his offer and then shrugged. “Why not? It’s not like he can arrest me for leaving _with_ an escort.” Just being near Marcus was making her calm down, and they hadn’t visited their secret spot in what felt like ages.

A grin was beginning to tug at her lips as she stood and Marcus pulled her forwards into something of a pirouette before she fell into his arms and he dipped her down. There was a smug, charming smile appearing on his lips and when she looked at him, he tweaked his eyebrows at her. She scoffed and pushed him away, only serving to have him drop her.

" _Ow!_ " She groaned. Marcus laughed as he helped her get to her feet again and they walked out to their secret spot. By the time they got there and began to entangle themselves in a passionate moment, Nadia was beginning to feel optimistic again. _Maybe today won’t be a total loss after all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the last "Chapter 1" was actually just the prologue. Sorry about the confusion. THIS is the real Chapter 1. hehe. I dunno if I should give these chapters actual titles or not. What do you guys think?
> 
> btw, I do have a good 6 chapters already done and ready to be uploaded. I'm posting the prologue and the first chapter today, but from here on out, I think it'll become a thing where I post a chapter once a week every Friday. Let me know what you guys think of that Idea. :3 (hopefully I'll be able to stay on schedule. xDD)
> 
> ~~~  
> Stay awesome, guys!


	3. Rainfall

The rain continued to pour down on the capital and its surrounding lands for several more days. This wouldn’t be a problem so much if it weren’t for the crops dying and the fact that it slowed down the reconstruction efforts.

A long time ago, a necromancer summoned a soul collector to do his bidding and steal the throne from King Ivan and the Queen. The summoning of such a powerful beast caused a massive earthquake that caused the capital city to collapse on itself into a giant crater. The disaster caused the deaths of so many citizens, including that of their beloved Queen, who was killed while in labor. Thankfully, Nadia survived, but the country still mourned the Queen’s death in their own way.

For instance, festivals are still held in her honor, even a hundred years later, and the city is still undergoing reconstruction. More and more of Old Polaris is dug out of the rubble every day. As one might imagine, this has quite the potential to be a gruesome job. Especially whenever another mass of crushed bones is discovered. Each time this happens, a priest is called down to sanctify the remains and send their spirits on. This happens a lot, and it’s why it has taken so long to get as far as they have with the rebuilding efforts.

The recent rain has driven the efforts to a screeching halt as now, not only do the people have to deal with digging out the ruins, but they also have to figure out how to drain the water that was flooding what they managed to uncover. The workers were crying out for help from the mages, but the mages were being difficult. They claimed the construction site was full of irreputable lowlifes that would rob them if they tried to lend aid.

So that was why Nadia was stuck here today. She was trying to get the workers and the mages to work together. So far, she’d had little success, and she was beginning to get aggravated after spending all morning going in argumentative circles. She was sitting in a chair on the far end of a room of the castle, Marcus was leaning against the door and watching the proceedings with a slightly amused expression on his face. A long desk stood between herself and the leaders of both parties to this dispute.

“... And furthermore, we aren’t convinced that digging out the ruins is such a good idea anyways. New Polaris is just fine as it is and if we dig out all that rubble, the crater might collapse again.” The archmage was saying.

“The people who died under all that stone deserve proper burials! And we’re running out of space for people in New Polaris. It’s time we fixed up Old Polaris to make room for our growing population.” The foreman of the workforce argued back.

“I’m not getting mugged just so a bunch of superstitious rabbits can sleep better at night.” The archmage snorted with disdain, which caused the foreman to flush angrily. “What did you say, you bearded oaf?!”

“I beg your pardon?”  
“You heard me!”  
“Be careful the forces you tamper with, sir!”  
“Ah, tamper with this!” The foreman moved to kick the archmage in the knee, which he dodged, as he prepared a spell to retaliate.

“ENOUGH!” Both men froze as Nadia snarled from her seat, standing up and banging her fist on the table separating her from them before this could escalate into a fist-and-magic fight. “I will get my father to assign more guards to the construction zone, and in the meantime, I will deal with the flooding myself. Can you both live with that?”

There was silence as the two men froze in the middle of grabbing at each other. They looked at Nadia, then looked at each other, then down at what their hands were doing. The Foreman let go of the Archmage's robes, and the Archmage let go of the Foreman’s suspenders.

“Yes, ma’am.” they both said, a bit awkwardly. Nadia cleared her throat and sat back down. “I will be by the construction zone this afternoon, Barris.” She nodded to the Foreman and waved her hand, dismissing them both.

As they left, she leaned forwards and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger.

“I swear, that Archmage is intentionally being antagonistic.” She muttered. “Go ahead and send in the next one, Marcus.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Marcus turned around and left the room for a moment before returning with the next two people. This time, Nadia raised a brow in disbelief as she saw that one of them was in chains. It was Anya, the old beggar woman that lived down the street. Anya was a dear friend of Nadia’s from childhood. The old cat used to live and work in the castle up until she was caught “collecting” shiny things from around the castle.

“What is the meaning of this?” Nadia asked, angrily, of the shopkeep who stood next to her.

“I caught this little rat stealing bread from me.” His proud expression withered away under the glare the princess gave him.

“Do me a favor. Look at her.” Nadia nodded her head at her former friend. “Look at how skinny she is. That fur doesn’t hide how thin she is, can you see her ribs? Look at how starving she must be. How dare you chain her for trying to feed herself.” Shame started to overcome the shopkeep and he stuttered.

“But-- I… She… yes, ma’am. Of course you’re right.”

“What are we if we forget charity? Certainly not Auraelians.” Nadia scolded. “Release her. Anya, I know you’re hungry, but you can’t go around taking things that don’t belong to you.” Anya flattened her ears against her head and nodded, looking down at her hands.

“I know.”

“I have an idea that might work out for both of you. As punishment for stealing, Anya, I sentence you to community service. Mr. Salvic here will oversee your work in his store without pay for a week to pay back what you stole. In return, Mr. Salvic, you will make sure she is fed properly.”

Anya perked up as she was unchained and smiled, her tail flicking about.  
“Oh thank you, miss! Thank you, efurr so much!”  
Nadia nodded.  
“After that week of working without pay, if you both want to continue the arrangement, Mr. Slavic, I expect you to start paying her, so she can buy her own meals.”

Cat and man looked at each other. “Alright then. I can agree to that. Come on, Anya. We’ll get you set up back at my shop.” Mr Salvic lead the way to the door when they were dismissed and Nadia smiled as her friend walked away, the light catching the pattern of stripes on her furred shoulders.

When they were gone, Marcus looked up.  
“You are getting quite good at delegation.” He commented.  
“As the next ruler of my people, I have to be.” She said. Nadia would stretch out her arms above her head and yawn. “Were they the last ones?”

“Uh… I don’t know, let me check.” He left the room and came back a moment later. “Yes, they were.”

“Good, I’m starving.” She stood up and walked around the desk to join Marcus next to the door.  
“Shall we head to the dining room for lunch, then?” Marcus suggested. “I’m hungry too.”

The two headed for the dining room. It was massive with a high, vaulted ceiling, long tables on either side of the room, and an open floor in the center for performances during dinner. The entire castle was made of diamond, and this room was no different. The walls sparkled in the dim light of the cloudy sky. The frosted crystal caused the surrounding landscape to lose all definition and become a vague mix of colors, like an abstract painting.

The chamber was lit by fairies that fluttered about the room, gracing people with the dust off their wings as they flew overhead. There were so many of them that they appeared as stars on the ceiling.

However, they usually slept during the day. The darkness of the storm must have been confusing them into staying up all the time, or perhaps they had divided into shifts, for it didn’t seem as though there were as many this time. Nadia wondered if the fairies were actually sentient. They were conjured to do a job by magic, after all, and real fairies were bigger than these fake ones.

Nadia and Marcus sat down at the table running along the right side of the hall and as they did, a servant came forward to place a bowl of hot venison stew in front of each of them, along with a loaf of fresh bread and a pot of butter churned that morning. Nadia and Marcus said the blessing of the four winds before they dug into the meal. Marcus cut them each a thick slice of bread and Nadia accepted hers with a nod of thanks.

They ate in relative silence, sating their hunger for the time being with comfort food that lifted the spirits on rainy days like this one. Nadia ate every bit of the stew, except for the celery. She left those bits behind. Marcus chuckled as he noticed this.

“They keep trying to sneak you celery, don’t they?”  
Nadia snorted.  
“I don’t know why. They know I’ll never eat it.” She forked another bite of carrots and meat in her mouth, closing her lips to chew politely. Marcus smiled as he watched her before returning to finish off his bowl. Nadia would finish first since she wasn’t eating part of it and push her bowl away from her when it was all gone, save for a small pile of soggy celery.

When they were both done eating, Nadia would lead the way out of the castle to the stables where Shadow and Blazer would be waiting for them. The gelding was Marcus’s horse, a proud painted warhorse that was the only horse to be considered Shadow’s equal. For cultural reasons, painted horses were undesirable for breeding in Marcus’s home kingdom and so, Blazer had been gelded when he was two years old. Blazer and Shadow were companions in the paddock, and they worked well together when Nadia and Marcus went riding.

The horses were already tacked up and waiting for them when they got there. Nadia didn’t waste any time getting up onto Shadow’s back and she waited for Marcus to do the same before they started off at a trot down the lane and towards the city. The streets were so crowded that they had to stay at a relatively slow trot, which would cause them to spend about an hour just traversing the crowded streets.

When they arrived at the construction zone, it was easy to see that the water from the rain was flowing down into the rubble in several areas. Nadia dismounted her horse to study the damage more closely and with a hand placed on Shadow’s nose, she silently told him to stay. Shadow was so well-trained, that he would obey her and wouldn’t move from that spot, not even as he was distracted by the horses passing them on the street. He would nicker to them but he still wouldn’t move.

Leaving the horses there, Nadia and Marcus made their way to the Foreman’s office to tell him they were here. Mr. Barris was looking over some paperwork when they entered and he looked up to greet them.

“Oh, thank the gods. Did you bring the guards you promised?”  
Nadia shook her head.  
“Not yet, I haven’t had a chance to tell the King of your needs, but I thought I would come down and see how bad it is first. Would you show us?” She asked.

“Sure, of course.” The foreman stood up from his desk and walked around it to join them at the door. He took his coat off the hook by the door and checked his pockets to make sure he had his keys in one of them. When he found them, he locked the door and ushered them out.

“Such a dreary day.” He commented as he lead them towards the ruins that were being flooded. Thunder rumbled in the distance as if to underline his point.

“Yes, I know. Seems the gods are silent as always no matter how hard we pray.” Nadia said as she followed with Marcus bringing up the rear.

“It’s enough to make a person doubt their faith.” She sighed and the foreman nodded in silent agreement.

“Right, so as you can see, the water’s pouring in through here and flooding the entire operation.” Mr. Barris said as he pointed out the gully that the rain had washed out as it poured down into the opening where the workers went down to dig out artifacts and buildings. Nadia studied the entrance with a careful eye and then looked at the street.

“Hrmmm…” She said as she thought. She watched the rain water flow into the opening for a bit, then started digging a slant away from the hole. Water began to rush that way, filling up the new hole and flooding it.  
“I have an idea.” She said at last, walking to the middle of the street. “What if we dug out a ditch running along the middle of the street to draw the water this way instead of down there? It could leak into a lane for water that would run all the way to the city reservoir.”

The foreman looked confused and, though Marcus was confused too at first, his eyes lit up with sudden understanding.

“I think I know what you mean.” He grabbed a shovel and started to dig a slant towards the center of the road, as he worked, a canal opened up in the center, just wide enough for water to seep into and with some other workers coming to help, they soon had a ditch dug that allowed all the water to run into the center of the road rather than down into the opening, flooding the ruins. Marcus stopped as the other workers started to dig and they had enough help without him.

“I’ll need some parchment and a quill. I’ll draw up the blueprints for the new storm drainage system and you men can work on building it.” Nadia said with a smile as she walked towards the opening. “For now, though, I suppose we can dry out the ruins.”

She raised her arms and closed her eyes to concentrate on her magic. She felt it flickering like a flame in the dark recesses of her mind, or perhaps it was more akin to a cloth fluttering in an unknowable breeze. Whatever it was like, she grabbed a hold of it with her consciousness and dragged it forth to abide her will as if it were as effortless as a heartbeat.

She stretched out her senses down to the water she could feel and used her strength to pull it up out of the opening. At first nothing happened, but then there was a rumble, and the ground shook before a huge wave of water spewed out of the opening and sprayed into the street, pouring into the newly formed canal until it was all up and out.

Nadia panted for breath as she finished her spellweaving, collapsing to the ground with a nosebleed when it ended. Magic drew on the energy of the one casting it. the more powerful spells required more energy, so it was often met with nosebleeds, headaches, and lethargy whenever one tried to use magic alone. Several mages working on one spell would even out the exchange, or one mage could use performance-enhancing substances to make him or herself more powerful. Nadia’s abilities were heightened so that she could cast spells that would take an entire group of other mages to cast without harm. No one understood her strange proficiency with magic, but then, no one was able to explain it, and so, no one really questioned it anymore.

Marcus bent down next to her.  
“Are you alright?” He asked as he pressed his handkerchief to her nose. She took it and wiped the blood away, before pressing it in place to stop the bleeding.

“Yes, I’m alright,” she said. She felt a spark of indignation that he would fawn over her like this, but she was too weak to wave off his help. “I’ll get the archmage and his veterans down here tomorrow to dry out the damp, but all the water should be gone now.” She looked to the Foreman who was looking at her with concern. He nodded and thanked her before turning to his workers to oversee the work digging out the canal that would lead to the reservoir. Nadia’s eventual blueprints would call for a grate to be placed over it so that carts and horses wouldn’t fall into the water.

For now, Marcus picked her up and carried her towards the horses to take her home. “I can walk, you know.” Nadia said around the handkerchief. She sounded annoyed that he was carrying her, and he laughed. “Yeah, I know.” he would place her on Shadow’s back and then get on Blazer so they could ride back home together.

Once they got the the castle, they passed their horses over to a stable hand and walked together up to the castle where Nadia would head to her bed chambers to write a letter to her father, explaining the situation and requesting extra guards be set around the construction zone so that the archmage and his colleagues could come and dry out the ruins. She signed it and sealed it with a wax stamp. Giving it to Marcus, she sent him away to deliver it.

The true reason she wanted him gone was so that she could take a bath. She called for her handmaiden and when Felsi arrived, she helped the princess out of her clothes and drew her a warm bath. They discussed the events of the day idly and Nadia began to feel better as Felsi sponged her clean with all the oils and soaps that she, as a royal, had access to.

Hours later, Nadia was in her evening attire, a midnight blue dress with a silvery lace embroidery over the bodice and lines of mother of pearl radiating from the waist down her skirt. As she headed down to dinner. Marcus had returned to say that the guards would be posted, and Nadia wrote a letter to the Archmage assuring him that the extra protections were in place. With a carrier en route to deliver the message, she could relax for the rest of the day and enjoy the evening’s entertainment.

Tonight, it was to be a ballet performed by a travelling troupe. She sat in her natural place at the head table and watched as servants brought in plates after plates of food- roast mutton, steamed vegetables, meat pies, salad greens, and several different types of hearty stews, soups, gravies, and sauces to go over everything. On top of that, bowls of fruit had been laid out to garnish the assortment of delicious dishes that were being laid out for guests.

It was a meal fit for all of the important dignitaries of the castle, including the royal family, the treasurer, the court mage, the official scribe, and the army generals. The ambassador of a neighboring kingdom and her family were visiting as well, so that called for a grandiose display of luxury. Nadia didn’t want to seem like Auraelias didn’t appreciate the Ambassador being here.

The princess sat down in a seat that was right next to the ambassador so they could engage in polite conversation and perhaps discuss more on the grounds of an alliance between kingdoms.

“... I hear your betrothal is going to be decided soon.” The ambassador gossiped with a giggle. “Anyone in particular you have your eye on?” She asked with a conspiratorial wink.  
Nadia rolled her eyes at the mention of her betrothal.

“That event has been happening every four years for the last three decades. Unfortunately for the men, the rules are such that if I win the tournament, then I am not marrying any of them. I’m unmarried because none of the contestants have yet been able to best me in single combat.” Nadia said with a snort of amusement.

“Oh, wow. That is not how we do things in Galleo.” The Ambassador giggled. “It must be quite a gratifying affair for you, though I feel bad for your suitors.”  
Nadia giggled as well.  
“If they want to be my King, they have to prove they are worthy.”  
The Ambassador nodded.

“I see. It is a strange custom, but I suppose it makes sense. I wish Galleo had it that way when I was young and being betrothed…” She gave a wistful sigh, then caught herself and shook her head. “I mean- not that I regret my parents choice, afterall, my husband and I are best friends, but there’s no… passion between us, if you know what I mean.”

Nadia glanced over at where the ambassador’s husband had been seated and nodded.

“I understand completely. I’m not getting married to anyone but the man who proves to be my equal. Which is why I am so ruthless in the betrothal tourney. In anycase, idle chatter about our love lives is not why I invited you here. I was thinking we might finally come to an agreement about the alliance between my kingdom and yours. I’m sure we could find some common ground upon which, we might form a treaty of some sort.”

“Mmn! Later, my dear. I never mix business with pleasure, it distracts from the entertainment.” The ambassador waved her off and Nadia realized she wouldn’t be able to use wine to her advantage.

Respect dawned on her as Nadia realized this and how it spoke of the Ambassador’s experience. Even as she was amicable now, Nadia knew she would not be easy to persuade to their side, especially if she refused to make important decisions while enjoying the good food, wine, and entertainment that Nadia had procured in her honor.

They would chat about idle gossip throughout the night, and as they did, Nadia would flirt and flatter the Ambassador. By the end of the feast, she looked at Nadia with a fuzzy expression on her face.

“If I didn’t know any- hic! -better, Nadia, I’d say you were- hic! -courting me.” She said, her face was flushed and there was a giggle in her tone.

Nadia hugged her guest around the waist, also a little bit drunk, in spite of her efforts to not be, and giggled.

“Hmmm… what if I- hic! -am?” The princess poured them both yet another glass of wine, finishing off that bottle and sipping the delicious liquid slowly. She had made sure to only drink a few goblets, much less than her guest, and so, while they were both drunk, Nadia was much less inebriated.

“I would- hic! -say that my husband might not- hic! -approve.” The ambassador looked down at Nadia who had placed her chin on her cleavage with a smirk.

“I dunno… he might not object to watching if he wasn’t passed out. Come on, Diane… have a little fun with me.”

Diane blushed a deeper shade of red and looked over to the other side of the lounge where her husband had passed out on the sofa cushions. She looked down at Nadia and shrugged.

“F-fine, but let's- hic! -retire to your bedchambers first.”

Nadia would stand up and support her guest from stumbling around. Taking her up some stairs towards her private wing of the castle, they would shut the door and Nadia would smirk as she was pulled across the extensive living quarters towards her sleeping chambers. This was an unexpected, yet not totally unplanned for, success. In short, she liked where this was heading. They hit the bed with identical sighs, reveling in the mattresses size, which was huge and recessed into the floor, and piled high with a mountain of silk blankets and pillows which cushioned their fall.

Nadia and Diane would “discuss” the terms of an Alliance between Auraelias and Galleo all night long, though the official details would probably be ironed out in the morning. For now, they were thoroughly enjoying each other’s company.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know I said I would upload this next week, but I just could not help myself. Mainly because I can not sit on a secret for shit, and it's just SO exciting getting to read all your people's kind comments on something I worked so hard on. :D
> 
> This was probably the BIGGEST chapter, hands down. On google docs it was like, 12 pages, whereas the prologue and chapter 1 combined were only 10 pages! :O From here on out, though I think the chapters average at around 7 pages each, thankfully. So as soon as I can get this beast of a chapter out of the way, it'll be a lot easier for me.


	4. Shadow's Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to split "Chapter 2" up into 2 separate parts, so this is the second half of Chapter two, now as Chapter three. :D

The next morning, Nadia and Diane were standing on either side of a desk in the same room that Nadia had conducted meetings with the populace the day before. They were discussing terms for an alliance and committing it to parchment through the efforts of a Scribe, who sat at a small desk in the corner.  Marcus stood guard at the door, watching the proceedings in silence.

“This document hereby describes the nature of the Alliance between the kingdom of Auraelias and the principality of Galleo. The parties representing both countries are as follows: Madame Diane De Huerta, Ambassador of Galleo, and Her majesty, Nadia Guenevere Demera Montematio, Crown Princess of Auraelias.” Nadia said these things aloud so that the Scribe could ink them down on the parchment with some master penmanship.

“Witnessing this discussion, Ser Marcus Julius, Personal bodyguard to the Princess of Auraelias.” Diane said with a nod to the guard.

“This document has been recorded legally and honestly by the Royal Scribe of Auraelias, Felix Ignacio.” Nadia finished the introductory information that was to be penned at the top of the page, and both women sat down in their respective chairs.

“What is Auraelias hoping to gain from this alliance?” Diane started them out by asking Nadia her conditions because Auraelias was much bigger in size and population. Nadia acknowledged her manners with a nod.

“Auraelias needs access to your port city, and especially a safe harbor from which to conduct trade with the other Kingdoms. Auraelias is willing to pay taxes to use this port, however, we would prefer to offer Galleo military support against the pirates and bandits that we know plagues Galleo’s trade routes. If Auraelias lent her support in dealing with these troubles, both countries could make a lot more money in the longrun if the profits of trade were cleansed of those that would leech it’s wealth.”

“Galleo accepts the offer of military support to chase out and prosecute the pirates and bandits plaguing our country. Galleo also suggests that All Auraelias exports are traded tax-free to Galleo. Galleo would benefit greatly in the ability to trade for the highest quality metals, textiles, oils, and spices which Auraelias is known for.”

Nadia frowned at that and gave Diane a sharp look. “Auraelias counters with trading our best quality exports at a discounted tax rate, such as fifteen percent lower than what we charge other countries.” She said, firmly.

Diane smiled. “Thirty percent?  
“Twenty.”  
“Twenty-five?”  
“Twenty-one, not a copper less.” Nadia and Diane smirked at each other.  
“Done. Record that, Felix.” Diane said as she shook hands with the princess.

There was a moment of silence as Felix wrote down the two clauses so far.

“So, what happens in the event of a war?” Diane asked when the scratch of the quill quieted.  
“Well, if Galleo or Auraelias is struck or declares war, the other party of this arrangement will be expected to lend support. Either way, you should expect a large amount of Auraelias soldiers to be stationed in Galleo from now on. Auraelias will expect your blacksmiths and horsemasters to supply our armies just as they would yours.”

“Hmmm…. How about the soldiers are only stationed if we are at war. I don’t want Auraelias soldiers taking advantage of their positions outside of war.”

Nadia thought about this and then shrugged.  
“Alright. But Galleo will not be allowed to declare war on another country without conferring with us. Auraelias has other alliances with other kingdoms, and we want to honor as many as we can. In return, Auraelias will not declare war without conferring to Galleo.”

Diana opened her mouth to debate that and then closed it again when Nadia tacked on the last clause. “Galleo agrees to this, neither country will declare war without first checking with the other party to this alliance.”

Nadia voiced her contentment with this arrangement and Diane looked at Felix with a nod. “Go ahead.”

The scribe began to write the agreements down, recording them on the parchment in ink. Princess and Ambassador waited until he finished catching up before they continued. This time, Nadia asked the questions.

“What does Galleo want from this alliance?” She asked.  
“Galleo reserves the right to exact justice upon those that commit crimes in our land, as well as surrendering those of our citizens that commit crimes in Auraelias’s land. Galleo also reserves the right of sovereignty over our land. This alliance does not impede upon Galleo’s independence, and if it ever does, this Alliance will be considered null and void.”

Nadia thought and then made a noise that seemed to voice her approval before she clarified. “That seems fair, Auraelias agrees to these terms, but also asks that Galleo agree to house Auraelias citizens in the port city to work in the shipyards and warehouses, thus we won’t have to rely upon the Galleo workforce to handle our goods.”  
Diane nodded. “Galleo believes that this is a good point and agrees. Felix, if you please.”  
Felix copied down the last few clauses to the alliance and then Nadia stood up.

“I believe that concludes our meeting. Madame De Huerta, should I expect you for dinner or will you be leaving for Galleo today?” She asks with a small curtsy.  
“I think I will stay for the cakes.” Diane said as she stood up. Nadia laughed.  
“You liked those, I take it?”  
“Oh yes, they were divine.”

Marcus moved to open the door for them as they left. The scribe would finish his writing and roll up the parchment before sealing it with a wax stamp.

“Good, I’m glad. I sent word all the way to Biracles for them. The baker was so pleased that he came here to bake them fresh for the feast last night. I believe he’s still here, baking more for tonight’s feast as well.”

“Mmmn… be sure to tell him his lemon tart is to die for. I’m surprised you went to such trouble for me.” They walked together down to the ballroom, which had been transformed into a ring for the tourney.

“Don’t worry about it, Diane. Only the best for my favorite guest.” Nadia winked at her and both women giggled. Marcus walked behind them in relative silence until now.

“My lady’s been craving those cakes anyways.” He said with a smile.  
Nadia blushed and elbowed him in the armored ribs.

“Marcus! _Ow_ … You’re not supposed to say that!” She looked at Diane with dismay as the other woman began to laugh. Nadia was rubbing her elbow gingerly.

“It’s fine, we all have cravings from time to time. Besides, those little cakes are delicious, so I understand.” Diane patted her friend on the shoulder while she tried not to laugh more.

Nadia sighed. “I suppose so.”  
She still looked unconvinced, but dropped the subject as Diane turned to Marcus.

“So, are you participating in the tournament?” She asked. Marcus shrugged and looked away from her, suddenly bashful at being brought into the center of attention.

“I might. It depends.”  
“On?” Diane prompted him when he didn’t elaborate and Marcus cleared his throat.  
“On if I can get one of Nadia’s other guards to watch her while I compete. I’m not supposed to take my eyes off her in public.” He said with a tension as though he were expecting to get hit.

Nadia sighed in an exasperated manner.  
“More of that overprotective clause in his job description. I’m not allowed to do anything on my own unless it would violate my modesty to have him watch me during those activities.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s really annoying, to be honest.”

“What, that I follow you everywhere?” Marcus asked with a grin as he teased her.  
Nadia glared at him, a playful gleam in her eye.  
“Yes.”

Marcus grinned and reached forward to pull her into a one-armed hug.  
“Well, too bad, princess. You’re stuck with me.”  
“It’s not like I don’t want you around. It’s just that I don’t see why he cares so much about my modesty. That should be something I decide for myself. I should be the one deciding who gets to see _my_ body.”

Diane nodded in agreement.  
“I see your point.” She said. Marcus smiled at them both.  
“And it’s not like I haven’t seen your body before.” He smirked at the scandalized expression that came upon Diane’s face.  
“Have you…?” She would ask, looking from Marcus to Nadia and back.

“No, we haven’t and I’ll thank you not to start rumors that aren’t true.” Nadia said as she hit Marcus again. “ _ow_ … That one time was an accident. He walked in on me in my small clothes while I was getting dressed.” She gave him a warning glare.

Sure, he was courting her, and they spent a lot of time at their “secret spot” but the company they maintained with each other had never turned vulgar. Holding hands and cheek kisses were about as far as they had gotten.

When they reached the ballroom, Marcus and the girls parted ways. Nadia and Diane would go sit at the raised stands at the opposite end of the room, while Marcus prepared for the tourney that was about to start. Since the King was unable to join the festivities, Nadia sat in the chair he would normally take, and Diane sat next to her.

The spectators gathered would stand up to sing Aurial’s Land, a song that pretty much every citizen of the kingdom knew. A lute player was leading them with a tune they all didn’t really need, but followed anyway.

 

 _The sun rises and falls on her starlit land from hilltop to hilltop three._  
_The moon waxes and wans on her forests and lakes, from tree to Hickory tree._  
_My love waits now on a starlit horse with celestial beings on guard._ _  
_ Aurial's land will keep her safe as she travels near and far.

 

 _The sun shines now, on her rich harvest land from hilltop to hilltop three._  
_The three stars guide the lonely maid as she gives to you and to me._  
_What maid is this that stands in silence and looks not for pride or desire?_ _  
_ She points at the north, guiding my love to a hearth made warm with fresh fire.

 

 _The sun sets now, on her bloodied land from hilltop to hilltop three._  
_My love is gone, her song is dead, from river to shimmering sea._  
_The battle rang for days and nights, countless as the stars._ _  
_ In the end, she has gone has gone from this world, but my love, we won the war.

 

 _Auriel's land stands proud and strong from hilltop to hilltop three._  
_A place safe from demons and danger and troubles, a triumph for you and for me._  
_My love is in pieces, the pieces shine brightly, yet sadness clings to my heart._ _  
_ For neither in this world or hers or anyone's can I bear us be apart.

  
When they finished, Nadia stood up and held out her arms in greeting.  
“That was lovely. Now, without further delay, Let the tournament begin!” The cheers echoed off the walls for a bit as Nadia sat back down and the first dueling match began.

“Ser Nicolas and Ser Tibalt are a good match up.” Nadia commented as she watched the two fight.  
“Indeed. Ser Nicolas is one of Galleo’s best, and I see Ser Tibalt is one of Auraelias’s best.” Diane smiled.

“He’s captain of the royal guard, he’s definitely one of our best. Not better than Marcus, though. King Ivan hired him as my bodyguard specifically for that reason.” Diane looked at her thoughtfully.

“To protect his legacy, I bet. He obviously cares a lot about his bloodline.”  
“I suppose.” Nadia shifted uncomfortably as she did whenever her father was discussed. She let the conversation lapse as they watched the duel, and when Ser Nicolas disarmed Tibalt, Nadia’s eyes widened.  
“Wow, I never thought I’d see Ser Tibalt fall like that.”

Diane looked at her with a grin. “Thats what you get for underestimating Galleo’s military.”  
Nadia stood up and stepped forwards. “In losing his Sword, Ser Tibalt has lost this battle. The winner is Ser Nicolas of Galleo.”

The crowd cheered as Ser Nicolas and Ser Tibalt bowed before the princess and then shook hands before leaving the makeshift arena.

The next match was between two Auraelian Officers in the Celestial Order. The knights wore their armor and fought as though they were old friends sparring in the barracks. The Celestial Order was a faction of elite knights who were held in reserve in the event of war. As Auraelias was mostly a peaceful country, the Order didn’t have a lot to do, so the tournaments were where they got to show their skills. The knights were evenly matched in strength and skill, so this was not an easy fight. It lasted for half an hour before one finally got the better of his opponent, who was tiring at last.

Their swords clanged as he struck for the man’s arm, and his opponent blocked. Though the impact was so powerful that it caused him to shiver and drop his sword.

Nadia stood up and held out her hand.  
“In losing his sword, Ser Oscar has lost this battle. The winner is Ser Balthazar.” More cheering as the knights took off their helmets and bowed before the princess. They shook hands and left the arena as the last competitors had.

The rest of the tourney went on in this fashion. Contestants from all over had come to vie for the boon awaiting the winner. Marcus ended up winning the preliminary round and the next one too. Nadia watched him fight while biting her lip. There was a moment where she thought he might lose and she tensed in concern as she watched. She needn’t have worried. In the next moment, he recovered and, with some creativity, came out on top in the end.

She gave a loud cheer before realizing Diane was smirking at her. She coughed to clear her throat and looked away, blushing. Nadia stood up to call an end to the fight and declare the winner.

In the end, Marcus didn’t end up winning. He lost in the semi-finals to a Knight of the Celestial Order, a veteran who was older and more experienced. Still, it was a close thing, and when he was finished, he came to join them in the stands, sitting on Nadia’s other side.

“Too bad you lost.” Diane said as he sat down.  
“It’s alright, Knight Rhyce is a previous Champion of Polaris. I consider it an honor that I got to cross blades with him at all.” Marcus said as he filled a goblet with water and drank deeply from it.

“You fought well.” Nadia said, approvingly as she patted Marcus’s arm. Marcus put the empty goblet down with a sigh.

“Thank you, your majesty.” He said, looking at her with a smile. Now that Marcus was here, the tourney was a lot more entertaining as he saw to it to be their personal commentator to the fights, often cracking jokes that had both women giggling into their hands.

The tournament took all day, and in between the semi-finals and the final round, the guests were served dinner. The final fight took place as entertainment to go with the meal. The people cheered throughout the fight and the presenting of the winners. Ser Rhyce went on to win the tournament and was given a cash prize of 100 pieces of Cryst.

When it was over and the last of the plates had been cleared off, Nadia bade her guests goodnight and Marcus followed her to her bedroom to stand guard outside the door. Diane was seen to by some maids who would bring her to the guest room she shared with her husband. Mr. De Huerta was a bit snippy with her for spending the night with Nadia without telling him, but Diane mostly ignored him after giving him a kiss to reassure him that she was alright.

***

The next morning, Nadia saw off her guests by giving Diane a friendly hug.  
“You will keep in touch, won’t you?” Nadia asked as a few butlers loaded their bags into a horse-drawn carriage.

Diane hugged her friend back and smiled. “Of course I will. I’ll make sure you are invited to the Winterfest Ball in Galleo.”  
Nadia’s face lit up. “Oh, marvelous. Galleo knows how to throw quite the gala, I can’t wait.”

Nadia was grinning as she held her friend at arms length. She looked at the servants that were almost done loading up the luggage of the De Huertas and let go of Diane.  
“Well, this is goodbye, I suppose.” Nadia said.

Diane climbed into the carriage and her husband followed. The driver clicked his tongue and the dapple grey horses began to walk away. Diane waved from the window and Nadia and Marcus waved back. When the carriage was out of sight, they turned to go back up the stairs and inside the castle.

Nadia paused when she heard footsteps running towards them from behind. She turned as a courier ran up to her. She recognized him as a guard from the Diamond Citadel.

“Hold, soldier. Whats the matter?” She asked, concerned as he skidded to a stop and bent double, huffing for breath.  
“The citadel…. _Huff_ … The stone…. _Puff_ …”

Nadia looked at Marcus who seemed just as worried as she was. News never came from the Diamond Citadel unless it was a dire emergency. _What had happened?  
_ “Calm down and take a breath.”

The courier held out a scroll that Nadia took and unrolled while the courier caught his breath.

 

_Your Majesty,_

_It pains me to bring you this information, but somehow between the guard shift change at 3 am, the stone of Aurial went missing. We believe it was an inside job, and the guards stationed in the citadel are being questioned as I write this. As you well know, the stone powers the device that casts the force field around the capital, protecting it and all major cities in Auraelias. The device has enough power to maintain a shield for the next four seasons, but at a severely weakened state. To put it bluntly, we are vulnerable._

_My deep apologies,  
_ _Knight-Commander Veronika_

 

Nadia read this through and looked at Marcus in shock.

“What?” He asked before taking the letter from her. Reading it quickly, his expression darkened as his eyes darted across the parchment. When he rolled up the scroll, he looked at the courier.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” He asked.  
“N-no, sir,” the courier said, a little shakily. “The Knight-Commander is furious. She’s having us all questioned like we were criminals.” He shivered.

“I can see why.” Nadia said as she looked over the letter again. She turned to Marcus. “We should bring this to my father and get him to assign guards to investigate. Return to your post, soldier. We’ll handle it from here.”

As the courier ran off, Nadia and Marcus made haste up to King Ivan’s quarters.  
“He’s not going to be happy about this.” Nadia said with a sigh.  
“When is that old coon ever happy?” Marcus countered. Nadia glared at him.

“This is no time for jokes, Marcus. This is serious. With the shield down, it’ll be easier for malicious forces to invade our lands. Our kingdom is in danger.”

When they reached King Ivan’s door, she knocked and when they had consent, they entered.

Ivan was being seen by a doctor who was taking his pulse and mixing the longevity potion that kept him alive all this time. The breakfast tray was next to him on the bed. Nadia saw the dishes were empty. _So he’d already eaten. Good._ She thought with a sense of relief. She hoped that would put him in somewhat of a jovial mood.

“Ah… Nadia.” His tone clearly said he wasn’t expecting her. He caught their expressions and he tilted his head. “What seems to be the matter, my dear?”

Without saying a word, Nadia handed him the scroll and waited while he read it. The doctor finished mixing the potion and gave him a goblet full. He downed the potion and shuddered at the taste as the doctor packed up his things and left. He finished reading the scroll and seemed to read it three more times as though he thought he had read the words wrong.

“I see.” Ivan said at last after a long silence had stretched to the point of being awkward.  
“We have to assign guards to investigate this.” Nadia said, worriedly.

Ivan’s gaze sharpened as he looked at his daughter.  
“No."


	5. Taking Action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okiedoke so now that I've gotten "Chapter 2" sorted out, enjoy the next installment! I'm going to keep working on Chapter 8 while I steamroll these early chapters out.

“No?” Nadia repeated, confused.  
“No.” Ivan said again.  
Nadia and Marcus shared a look and looked back at King Ivan with almost identical expressions of disbelief on their faces.

“I trust the Knight-Commander is doing everything she can to find the culprit.” He added.  
“But-” Nadia tried to interject, but he talked over her.  
“Assigning extra guards to the case would just crowd the citadel.”  
“But with the stone gone-”  
“I’m well aware of what that means.” Ivan’s voice was so calm it was icy.

At first she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but slowly that disbelief turned to rage. Nadia was so angry, she was shaking.  
“The security of our citizens has been compromised.” She growled out, slowly as though she didn't think he could understand Auraelian.

“I will alert the city guard to be on higher alert.” Ivan waved her away.  
“What if one of our other cities is attacked?” Nadia asked, trying to control her temper from seeping into her tone of voice with little success.  
“I will send a courier with a letter explaining the situation to each of our major cities.” Ivan said, sniffing with disdain.  
“And what about the small villages? They are not protected anymore at all anymore.” She said.  
“Their guards will know what to do. Obviously whoever did this is garnering for war with us. If they are, you need to grow up, Nadia. Casualties happen.”

“You’re telling me I’m supposed to let our innocent citizens die?” She asked, outrage clear on her expression. She had been very non-confrontational with her father before now. The thought that her people were in danger made her throw caution to the wind. She would not release her ideals of keeping as many lives safe as she could, she could not. To her, even the lowest peasant was important to the kingdom in their small way. To hear that he expected her not to care if a few villages were attacked was too much for her to bear.

“If it’s for the greater good, then yes.” Ivan said, clearly unmoved by her fury. “Calm down, Nadia. This is not how a lady of status behaves.” He scolded her like she was a child and Nadia’s rage exploded.

“NO! I will not calm down! Our citizens are in danger, the stone is missing. There are a number of forces out there that would LOVE to see Auraelias fall, and what’s worse is that you’re telling me not to care. You haven’t been leading them for a decade. Many of them think you’re dead, they’re thinking I’M Queen now. You don’t even deal with the day to day judgings, _I DO!_ I know each citizen of Polaris by name, I know they’re lives and I guide them the best I can. I can’t just NOT care about their well-being. Once, we had a King who would have understood that. Wasn’t it YOU who told me that a good ruler takes an active role in the daily lives of their subjects? If you want to sit here in bed and not give a damn about our kingdom, you can do that, but you are not my king. Not any longer.”

With an enraged noise, she turned on her heel and marched out with Marcus on her tail. She slammed the door on his flabbergasted face and eyed Marcus as though she were daring him to say anything to contradict her actions. Fortunately, he had enough sense to stay out of her way.

“What do you want to do?” He asked as he followed her. She paused and took a deep breath when they reached a rotunda that lead off to several different areas in the castle. She was breathing hard as the adrenaline of standing up to her father finally released it’s hold on her and she felt like she had run a mile.

“I don’t know.” She admitted as she got her breath back and her heart rate calmed. It had been beating against her ribs in a furious beat. She raised her hands and pressed her face into her palms. Nadia felt Marcus place a supporting hand on her shoulder. When she looked up at him, she saw sympathy in his gaze.

“Are you okay?” He asked, cautiously. She watched as his eyebrows furrowed with concern.

“I don’t know...” She looked away and bit her lip as she thought once again of running away.  
“Why don’t we go and talk to the Knight-Commander? We can see what she has to say about this.” Marcus offered and Nadia nodded absentmindedly.

Knight-Commander Veronika was a strict woman in her early forties. Her brown hair was greying out and it was held back into a tight braid that fell down her back, though she rolled it up into a bun during training bouts or fights. Usually the gathering up of her braid told recruits to run because Veronika meant business. She wore the armor befitting a knight of her station, heavy steel plate armor with the crest of the Celestial Order stamped into the breastplate. It was of a setting sun fashioned into an eye looking at three stars twinkling next to each other. Each star represented a different aspect of the kingdom- the people, the gods, and the future.

When Nadia and Marcus arrived, she was sitting at a table in the interrogation room, watching as a lieutenant questioned one of the recruits. She stood up and walked over to greet them. She had a crooked nose, as though it had been broken at one point, and a scar on her cheek that reached up to cut across her brow and branched off across the bridge of her nose. Another, deeper scar sliced down the inside of her her forearm as she held it out to shake hands with Marcus.

“Well met, Ser Marcus. Your majesty.” She gave a sharp nod to both of them. “I take it you received my letter?” As she talked, she led them away from the interrogation room, up a spiral flight of stairs and down a hall towards her office.

“Yes, we did. King Ivan is refusing to send you any guards to help the investigation.” Nadia’s anger was still bubbling in her tone as she mentioned her father. Marcus braced her by placing a hand on her shoulder again.

“Yes, well… that sounds like him. I’ve stopped hoping he’d suddenly care about our order. All he does now is order me to send him updated copies of the roster. The Guard Captain is fed up as well.” She snorted derisively. It was oddly comforting to hear someone else was just as unhappy with her father as Nadia was.

“Heh, well… until he kicks the bucket or someone convinces him to retire, he’s still the one ‘in charge’ however, that doesn’t mean I can’t offer my assistance. I want to help with the investigation as much as I can.” Nadia said, offering the knight-commander a helpful smile.

“And me. I’m here to help as well.” Marcus added, glancing at Nadia with a look.  
Nadia rolled her eyes. “And Ser Marcus too. We will do all we can to help.” Nadia watched Veronika give a sigh of gratitude.  
“Your help is appreciated, your majesty.”  
“What can you tell us about what happened?” Marcus asked.

“Well, so far as we can tell, one of our new recruits was on duty last night and the Stone went missing during their shift. Along with the recruit.” She clenched her fists as she admitted that a thief had infiltrated the order and stolen the stone right under her nose. It was like she was tasting a particularly bitter spoonful of medicine. Nadia knew she must really hate the fact that she was outsmarted so easily, and was liable to be even harder on her soldiers.

“Calm down, Knight-Commander,” Marcus said, realizing he was in a room with two women with volatile tempers was a good time to keep a level head. “We’ll find them. Have any of your recruits said anything to give you any hint as to where they may have gone? Perhaps we can send word ahead and have the roads watched for signs of this recruit.”

“I’ve already sent word ahead to all the major cities,” Veronika waved a hand to dismiss his suggestion. “They’ll all be on high alert for the thief until he’s caught.” Nadia thought for a moment before looking up. “Can we see the room where the Stone was?” She asked.

“Of course, majesty.” Veronika stood up and walked them up to the top floor of the citadel, which was a total of twelve sets of spiral stairs above them. Nadia was wheezing by the time they reached the top.

“We’ve got to find… a better way… to get up here…” She said between heavy breaths.

Veronika chuckled. “I was the same way when I joined the order.” She said as she unlocked the room and let them in through the door. Marcus let Nadia and Veronika go first and brought up the rear.

Nadia looked around at the device that filled the room with it’s mechanics. There was an obvious empty spot where the stone had been resting, lending the device it’s power. She seemed to study the room carefully for any clues she could discern, but aside from the obvious missing stone, there didn’t seem to be any clues left that would lead her to some epiphany about the culprit.

“He signed on under an alias. I knew it was an alias but I didn’t think anything of it. Knights in the Order are allowed to have names they wish to be called, and your history isn’t mandatory to be known, we don’t care who you were, what matters is who you are now.” Veronika said. “I will be more diligent on that front from now on.” 

Nadia raised her hand to signal her to quiet down. “It’s alright, Veronika. No one thought anyone would actually try to steal our most treasured artifact. Ten thousand years of peace has made us complacent, so no one is blaming you for this,” she spoke calmly as she thought harder. “Still, whoever this thief was, he did a good job at covering his tracks. Which tells me we’re dealing with an experienced criminal. He’ll have a name for himself in other cities and kingdoms, I’m certain.”“I made sure to include that in my report that I sent out to the major cities. Their guard will be on high alert for any activity from any of our most notorious criminals.” Veronika said, looking at the two of them. “If it was difficult for the criminals to move about before, it’ll be impossible now.”

“Good.” Marcus said, approvingly. Nadia sighed unhappily. She was still itching to act and finding out there was nothing more they could do was frustrating to no end.

“I think that’s about as much as we can do. My father was right, you’ve got this pretty much handled, except that we’re still missing a stone.” She said. Marcus looked at her with a curious expression on his face.

“I’m sure you have other duties to attend to,” Veronika agreed. “I’ll call for you if we learn anything.”

The rest of the day was spent with Nadia in a rather subdued manner. Marcus was the same way, though he kept a sharp eye on Nadia all day in case she was planning what he was thinking she was planning.

***

It was late at night when she collected her things into a sack and strung it over her shoulder. She was dressed in a pair of breeches a simple blouse with a leather corsetta around her middle. She had her sword strapped to her hip by a belt around her waist and around her shoulders was her travelling cloak. Her hair was held back in a braid to keep it out of her face. She snuck out of her room, her boots making little noise with each step she made. She still paused to listen for any sound that she had been found out.

She got all the way down to the kitchen where she grabbed a couple apples, a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, and a waterskin. She added these items to her pack and continued down to the armory, where she grabbed a bow and a quiver of arrows, assuming she would need to hunt meat for herself, she figured these things would come in handy.

Nadia hung these items over her shoulder and as she was walking out, she noticed a finely crafted dagger lying on a table. She eyed it for a moment and then walked over and grabbed that too before she walked out and crept down to the stables. She woke up Shadowfall and brushed him quickly before getting into the tack room.

She took his bridle but not his saddle and put it on him. He nickered confusedly as he watched her mount him and with a swift kick to his sides, she leaned down over his neck and pointed forwards. “Let’s go, boy!” She whispered. With a squeal, the stallion bolted forwards, his hooves striking the cobblestone with a clatter as he galloped out of the stable yard and down the empty streets. She steered him out of the city and out of the crater that the city rested in.

She didn’t know where she was going, but she couldn’t stay here and do nothing while danger lurked around the corner for herself and her subjects. It was oddly freeing to be galloping away from all she had ever known. She’d never been out of the city on her own before, and it was odd in that it felt right to be doing this. Even as she felt sad that she had to leave Marcus behind… her bodyguard would never understand her need to do this.

Horse and rider galloped through the night, putting as much distance between themselves and the capital as they could before Nadia had to stop. They were racing through the forest and after he cleared a stream, she pulled him up to slow into a walk and then a stop. “Easy, boy... “ She patted his neck and looked around them. Squeezing with her knees, she edged him into a walk. Sweat patches were covering the stallion’s neck and his breathing was labored from such a run, but he was still spirited enough for there to be a spring to his step.

She rode him on until they came to a clearing in the trees and she felt it was a good place to stop. She dismounted and took his bridle off. “Stay.” She would say before patting his nose. The stallion pricked his ears and as she moved away to set up her little camp, he put his head down to graze. Pretty soon, she had a fire going and had pitched herself a tent. She unrolled her bedroll and took out an apple. She bit into it before tossing the second apple to Shadow, who picked it up in one swift bite. He chewed on it appreciatively, his breathing slowly returning to normal as he rested.

Nadia laid back on the bedroll, her fingers playing with the ring she had brought with her. It was a ring that had belonged to every Montematio to rule Auraelias for the last two thousand years. Because it was so old, it was crude in its craftsmanship, but it was still a solid gold piece of jewelry that carried a lot of weight. She put it back on her finger and let herself doze off into a fitful sleep. She was used to a much softer bed, so it was tough going to sleep on the hard ground in just a bedroll. Nadia was determined to tough it out.

***

Hours later, she woke up to sunlight pouring on her face. She moved and regretted it almost instantly as every muscle in her body ached from sleeping on the hard ground after a really grueling ride. She stretched out the stiffness in her limbs before sitting up and rubbing her head.

“Arthur, can you please close the blinds… and order a new mattress, this one’s stiff as a board.” She said sleepily before her eyes blinked open and she remembered where she was.

“Oh… right.” She sighed and began to pack up her camp again, rolling up her bedroll and the tent she had brought. She sat down and enjoyed a piece of toast and some cheese before she got up and wiped her hands on her breeches. She would whistle for Shadow, who came trotting to her call as soon as he heard her.  
She patted his neck as she put the bridle on him again.

“Come on, boy. Time to go again.” She shouldered her pack and weapons and jumped up onto Shadow’s back. Sitting up straight, she nudged him into a trot that brought them out of the clearing and back into the woods towards the road.

Throughout the day’s ride, Nadia could not shake the feeling she was being followed. She kept thinking she heard or saw something each time she had to pause to read road signs. But when she stopped to look twice, it was gone.

Still, she decided it was probably best if she got off the road, so she brought Shadow to a path that cut straight across the woods. Only this made it worse. there was extra rustling through the undergrowth as they and their pursuer passed through it. She stopped and looked behind her several times but still couldn’t see anything. Towards the end of the day, Nadia decided it would probably be prudent to stop and hunt for her dinner. She rode until she saw a rabbit scuffing through some bushes. She pulled her bow and nocked an arrow. She wasn’t very good at it though and when she loosed the arrow, her inexperience showed itself when the arrow whizzed off into the distance and struck a tree. The noise alerted the rabbit, who raced away for cover.

Nadia blushed at such a spectacular failure. _Well, it’s a good thing Marcus isn’t here. He’d never let me live this down._ She thought with a sigh. Clucking her tongue, she got Shadow to walk again and they began to search for something else. She decided that the only way to get better at it was to keep trying, so she wouldn’t quit until she had successfully shot something she was aiming at.

It had gotten dark by the time Nadia finally just gave up. She was beginning to curse her past self’s insistence that Archery wasn’t an important skill for her to learn. Now that she actually needed it, she was such a bad shot that she had not hit a single thing she’d been aiming at. Without proper instruction, she would probably never learn the skill. It was hard to learn by yourself when you didn’t know what you were doing wrong.

Nadia set up her camp again and had another piece of bread and cheese and a swig of the waterskin. She was soon bedding down for the night. It was no easier to fall asleep tonight than it had been the night before, but eventually she dozed off into sleep.

The next week was the same routine. Get up, eat some bread and cheese, wash her face if she can, pack up the camp, ride for a while in no particular direction, try to hunt, fail to hunt, bread and cheese, and go to sleep. Except that she continued to feel like she was being followed and frequently thought she saw someone watching her. Though whenever she looked twice, they had gone. At least it was getting easier to sleep on the bedroll. Each day she slept on it, it was easier to wake up in the morning, maybe she was just getting used to the stiffness.

She passed through a small village on her eighth day of wandering and managed to find a scholar that would sell her a map for 5 silver pieces. She didn’t think to grab any money from the treasury before she left, but she decided to visit a store and sell a piece of jewelry that she had thought to bring along. She sold a jeweled golden locket for 10 gold pieces and she asked to receive one of the sovereigns as 100 silver pieces instead. She then went to a saddler and sold Shadow’s more ornate bridle for one that was less conspicuous. She also paid for a new saddle that was more plain than the one she had left behind.

She made sure to order a saddle with a lot of saddlebags that would allow her to lighten the weight of her pack and carry more things. She went back to that scholar and bought the map he had for sale, then spent some time in the marketplace buying fresh bread and cheese and some fruits that she could eat for the nights her trend of not catching anything continued. She also invested in a tinderbox so fires were easier to make at night without raising suspicions of magic use. Not that it was particularly odd for mages to travel, but she wanted to appear as mundane as possible to those she passed on her travels. No doubt her father would have the entire kingdom on high alert for the missing princess by now.

She was riding Shadow towards leaving the village when she heard voices whispering to each other. She slowed Shadow to a stop and pulled out her map to pretend to study it while she listened in on what they were saying.

“...’m saying is that it seems fishy to me.”  
“What does?”  
“The princess is missing. I bet it was Galleo spies that kidnapped her.”  
“What?”  
“Well, you heard about that big fancy alliance she’s been pushin’ for with them southerners?”  
“Yeah…?”  
“I bet it was jus’ a ruse for the Galleans to come and do away with our rulers.”  
One of the women placed her hand over her mouth and gasped. “They wouldn’t…. would they?”  
“Makes sense that they would.”

Nadia paused as she looked over at the small group of women who were whispering this conversation. She was shocked by such an accusation. One of the guards paused as he passed her by.

“Oh, don’t pay them any mind, ma’am. They jus’ like their gossip. Not much of what they whisper about is actually true.” He said as he saw what she was looking at. Nadia nodded, though she was still troubled by what she’d heard. She nudged Shadow to walk on and put her map away for now, folding it and putting it back in her pack.

At the end of the day, she found a stream gurgling over a waterfall surrounded by a sheltered glade in which to set up camp. She untacked Shadow and pitched her tent under the overhang of rock that formed the waterfall. Under here, she was more protected from attack and she could defend herself better since there was only one entrance to the cave she was in.

She walked out to search the area for game with her bow and arrow, determined to get some practice in. Nadia didn’t have to walk very long before she found a deer grazing in a small clearing. She crouched and nocked an arrow. Taking a breath in she took aim at the deer and released the arrow. She cursed as it struck the deer in the leg and it gave a cry of alarm and pain. It limped forward and she quickly nocked another arrow. She stood and walked out of cover to shoot at the back of the deer’s head. She hit it’s shoulder and the Deer fell down to struggle in the undergrowth.

Cursing under her breath, she walked over and took out her dagger to finish the job. She was unhappy that her lack of skill had caused such a sloppy kill. Her goal was to eat without making the animals she hunted suffer too much. She placed her knee on the stag’s neck and patted his shoulder.

“I am sorry you had to suffer for this.” She said before she sank her dagger into the deer’s heart. Back when she was a girl, King Ivan used to take her hunting and she would watch as he shot and skinned the animals. He would have started teaching her how to do it if he hadn’t gotten so sick.

Still, watching him, she had picked up on what to do and quickly cast a spell under her breath to keep the flies away from the carcass. She tried to lift it and carry it back to camp but when she couldn’t handle the weight, she gave up and decided to just skin it where it lay. Nadia would probably not win any awards for her skill, but in the end the deed was done and she had several pounds of meat that she would smoke over a fire and hang to dry overnight. It would take about 5 days to be ready and she decided to stay in one place until it was. She took some to cook and eat that night, enjoying it as though she had forgotten how good meat tasted over the week she had gone without it.

Later that night, she took out her journal from her pack and as she sat down on her bedroll and ate pieces of roast venison over toast, she wrote a new entry for the first time in days, seeing as the last week hadn’t really been noteworthy to write about.

She felt the village was worthy of an entry, though… And her first kill was definitely worth a mention. When Nadia finished writing and eating, she laid back and stared up at the ceiling of the tent. The wavering light of the moon passing through the waterfall created pretty, dancing patterns on one half of the canvas walls. She listened to the sound of the waterfall and the sounds of shadow grazing in the clearing. She could just hear him stomp his hoof and swish his tail over the sound of trickling water. She passed out wondering what it would be like to be a horse.


	6. Education in Nemal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said I was going to post a chapter every week?
> 
> Haha...
> 
> hahahaha.
> 
> I have a problem. :/
> 
> ENJOY THIS NEXT CHAPTER! :D

The next few days saw a steady increase in Nadia’s feeling of being watched. She didn’t like staying in one place, and each day she waited, she poked at the drying meat as though willing it would dry faster. Several times during the day, she thought she saw someone watching her at the edge of her vision but when she turned to really look, they were gone. Nadia was beginning to think her sudden solitude had caused her mind to conjure up these things so she wouldn’t feel so alone, but she was quick to dismiss the idea when it came to her. Still… She was developing a twitch with how often she did double-takes, thinking she’d seen something or someone watching her.

It happened one afternoon when she was washing her small clothes downstream of where she had set up camp waiting for the meat to dry. She’d used the time to practice her archery even more and she liked to think she was getting better at hitting her targets. She was noting some progress in her skills, but again without a proper teacher, it was slow going. That was what she was thinking about as she scrubbed her things with a bar of soap and hung them on a branch to dry.

Suddenly, she heard a rustling in the undergrowth as she hung the last of her intimates on the branch. Far too much for it to be a simple rabbit or deer. She almost thought it might be Shadow, but when she looked, she saw patches of white through the leaves.

“... Hello?” She asked as she reached for her sword which was always at her hip these days. Nadia drew her blade as she stood up.

“Who are you? What do you want? Why are you following me?” She demanded as she glared around her. The rustling seemed like it was on all sides now, but then a voice called through the trees.

“Nadia, it’s me! Blazer’s stuck.”  
Shock coursed through her as she recognized the familiar voice at once.

“Marcus?” She asked as she sheathed her blade and walked over to part the bushes and look for him. She almost laughed at what she saw. Bramble vines were wrapped around Blazer’s legs and a sapling branch was caught in the stirrup. Marcus was similarly caught, the brambles snagging his cloak.

“Oh dear… _snrk_ … Okay, hold still.” She pulled out her dagger and cut Marcus free by slicing through the vines, while he focused on getting the thorns out of the thick cloth, she bent down and started to cut Blazer free too. Some of the thorns had dug into his skin and with his struggles, he had made it worse. Drops of blood now smeared his white legs.

Once they were both free, Nadia lead Blazer out of the brambles and into the clearing where she was camped. Shadow looked up from his grazing and nickered at his friend, though he snorted in alarm at the scent of blood. Nadia took up a scrap of cloth she had from a shirt she could no longer wear because it was too small for her and rinsed it in the river before coming to clean Blazer’s legs of blood. Thankfully the wounds weren’t bleeding too bad and she could leave them open to heal better with a mild poultice she could mix from some of the herbs growing in the area.

When Blazer was untacked and grazing alongside Shadowfall, Nadia looked at Marcus and bit her lip.

“Hey, you.” She said. Marcus approached her and placed his hand on her cheek.  
“Hey…” He replied.  
“You been following me long?”  
“A bit… you had quite a head start.”  
“I see…” Nadia was quiet for a moment before she laughed and threw her arms around him.

Caught by surprise, Marcus barely managed not to fall backwards as he held her around the waist. They spun around once or twice before he steadied their movement and set her down. Then, without really thinking about it, he pulled her close and kissed her.

Nadia could feel her face grow hot as she kissed him back, her hands wrapping around his shoulders more securely as though she never wanted to let him go. She felt his arms lock around her waist and she felt as though the feeling she had had ever since she left the capital, that sense of wrongness, of being watched, she felt it evaporate as though this was what she had been missing.

When they broke apart, she frowned at him.  
“You shouldn’t have come…” She whispered. “My father will kill us both if his men catch us-”

“They won’t. You’ve disguised yourself well, and no one really knows my face enough to recognize me. Anyways, you need me around. Who else is going to sit around and look pretty?” He winked at her.

Nadia snorted. “I need someone to teach me how to use a bow, so keeping you around has it’s merits.” She stepped away from him and walked over to where she had her bow and quiver leaning against the entrance to the tent. Marcus followed and looked around.

“You got yourself pretty well staked out here.” He commented as he inspected the camp. “It’s not bad.”  
“Thanks.” Nadia said as she picked up the map. “I didn’t just run away out of spite, you know. I’m looking for the stone.”  
Marcus shrugged as he crouched next to the fire pit she had formed. “I figured you were going after it. Any idea where it could be?”

“A few.” She unfolded the map and spread it out. “See, I figure the stone is pretty large, about the size of a dragon egg. It’s too big to be hidden in your clothes easily, and too heavy to carry for long distances, so I figure that whoever stole it went to the closest trading city to Polaris. However, I also know it is not an obscure object, the sight of the stone is a common knowledge to most everyone in Auraelias. They’ll need to find a black market to pawn it off as quickly as possible for the most amount of money.”

Marcus nodded his head. “So you were thinking… Nemal? The river city?” He asked, pointing at one of the major cities nestled like a jewel on both sides of a great river deep enough and wide enough to support small cargo schooners that would run supplies to all the cities that existed along the river. Nemal was also infamous for it’s black market, which was responsible for smuggling quite a bit of substances that were technically illegal in Auraelias. It was the perfect place for a thief to sell some stolen artifacts, and close enough to Polaris that said thief wouldn’t have to carry it around for more than three weeks.

“So… what are you doing here?” Marcus asked, raising an eyebrow at her to which, Nadia looked away from him.  
“Nadia?” He prompted, leaning forward to look at her face.

Nadia pursed her lips and mumbled something. Marcus chuckled.  
“What was that?” He asked before grabbing her around the waist, pulling her toward him, and blowing a raspberry into her neck.  
Nadia squealed as he struck her most ticklish spot.

“Aaahh!! Haha, alright, alright! I killed a deer. I’m drying the meat into jerky for the trip.” She said, laughing as he kissed her shoulder. “Marcus, please.”

She tried to push him away even though deep down, she understood his actions. This was the first time they were completely free to be as affectionate as they felt for each other. Back in the castle, they were being watched at all times. Even their secret spot had the risk of being spotted by guards or servants in the castle. So, back home, they had to bottle up their relationship.

Out here in the woods, there were no eyes on them and no risk of being caught. So part of her didn’t want to stop him from kissing down her neck. But this was serious and they were talking about things that were important.

“Heh, sorry.” He put her down and Nadia straightened herself out, placing a hand on her neck where he’d bitten her.  
“If that leaves a mark, I swear I’m going to murder you.”  
“Punch me later.” He said before looking at her more seriously. “You know you could have sold the body of the deer in town and bought some jerky already made from the butcher, yeah?” He asked.

“Oh…” Marcus laughed and she punched his arm. “ _ow_ … I didn’t think about it because Jerky was so expensive in the last town. I didn’t think I could afford it.”  
“Well, now you know. If we hunt down something bigger than a rabbit, we can take it with us to the next town and trade in the fresh meat for cured meat.”

“Heh…” she looked down at her hands. Marcus placed an arm about her shoulders.  
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’ve lived your whole life in a palace having your every need seen to by servants.”

Nadia looked up at him. “Yeah, I know. It’s taken some getting used to, doing things for myself. Which is another reason why I wanted to take a break from traveling.”

“Well, I hope you’re ready to leave. We need to leave for Nemal now if we’re going to catch this thief before he sells the stone. If it gets on one of those Searunners, we’ll never find it.” Marcus said, sternly. “How long has the meat been drying?”

“Five days.” Nadia said, looking a bit ashamed of herself for wasting so much time.  
“Oh, well, it should be ready now.” He walked over to where she had hung it up out of reach of bears and lowered it down to take a piece. He chewed on it and nodded.

“Yeah, that’s good.” He said, swallowing after he chewed on it for a bit. “Let’s wrap this stuff up and put it away. We need to get going.”

Together, they packed up the camp and divided the things between Blazer and Shadow. Once it was all clean, they would ride to the road and gallop down it on the way to Nemal. It would take them three days to get there if they really pushed their horses, four days if they wanted to keep their horses from exhaustion.

As it was, they approached Nemal on the morning of the fourth day. It was a huge city, almost as big as Polaris, though this was in part to the river that cut through the town. The river was easily a kilometer wide, splitting the city into east and west halves. They approached the Eastern side of Nemal which was where the farms were. All the crops that fed the city were grown there, as well as the Zeboar herders that supplied the town with wool and meat.

They rode past a herd of them on the way into town. Nadia had never seen a live Zeboar before. It was an ugly beast, as big as a rhino with a hump on it’s shoulders and a coat of thick, matted hair. There seemed to be three varieties- red, cream, and black or brown, all with the same garish white (or black in the case of the cream version) stripes. The males had thick, heavy tusks hanging from their jowls, but all of them had a ridge of bony spikes protruding from a leathery, hairless stripe that ran the length of their body. They had long, droopy ears and they lolled to each other as they were herded about by a man on a horse with a long bullwhip in hand.

As they passed, Nadia saw why he was armed. A male of the zeboars saw him and charged. With a flourish, the man struck the zeboar with his whip and drove it back. Marcus leaned closer to her.

“Zeboars are still partially wild even though they are stupid enough to be herded. Every once in awhile, the dominant male of the herd challenges the herder, and without that whip, the zeboar would kill him.” He explained to her.

“Oh! So… it’s a constant battle of wills between them?” Nadia asked, glancing at him.

“Yeah, since the zeboar will soon forget this lesson, see him, and try again.” Marcus nodded.  
“That's…. Hm.”  
“What’s wrong?”  
“Nothing, it’s just a bit unsettling is all. King Ivan legalized zeboar herding, yes?”  
“That’s right.”

Nadia fell quiet as she thought about this. They passed through a long row of fields growing all manner of things from apples to watercress.

“It doesn’t actually hurt, you know.” Marcus commented as they passed a field of wheat. Nadia was pulled out of her reverie and looked at him.

“Huh?” She asked.  
“The zeboar. Hitting him like that doesn’t really hurt him. If it did, he might remember the pain, but he doesn’t. Zeboar hide is really thick and tough. It’d take a lot more than a bullwhip to really hurt him.” Marcus explained.

“Yeah, but herding an animal like that is dangerous, isn’t it? What if the bullwhip wasn’t enough to stop the charge?” Nadia fretted. “What if the zeboar decided to ignore the whiplash?”

“Hm… I see your point.” Marcus nodded. “Well, it’s dangerous, but worth it. Zeboar wool is higher quality than sheep wool, the milk is richer than a cows, and their meat is tender and less fatty, so it goes for a higher price.”

Nadia nodded to show she understood.  
“I see.” she said.

Soon they were coming up to a mass of houses arranged along a spider web of streets in no particular order. There were some old mansions that belonged to the noble families that owned all the land and hired the people to work the fields, as well as some shops for people who plied different crafts. There was a marketplace, a blacksmith, a tavern, a saddler, a tailor, a carpenter, and even a fishery on the docks.

Eastern and Western Nemal were independent of each other. They both had everything they needed on their side of the river so that they didn’t have to spend money at the ferry to cross the river to run errands. These days, the river was mainly a highway for cargo schooners to run goods north and south to towns and cities along the river.

The honey trade dominated the economics in Nemal. The farmers on the east side harvested the honey, then sent it across to the west side, where breweries turned it into mead, which was then shipped out all across the known world. However quaint Eastern Nemal was, it was Western Nemal that Nadia and Marcus needed to get to. They stopped in Eastern Nemal for the night, bedding their horses in the livery for the night while they went to rent a room in the tavern.

They ate a good meal and enjoyed the local brew before retiring to the room they shared. Nadia blushed as a drunken Marcus hugged her from behind and, being just as drunk as him, Nadia didn’t stop him from pulling the strings to her corset loose.

Once again, she felt his lips on her shoulder. He kissed, nibbled, sucked on the same ticklish spot, his breath falling against her skin, causing it to tingle. Nadia felt herself relax against him, wanting nothing more than to completely abandon herself to the desire that they had carefully hid away all these years.

She turned around to face him and began to tug on the trappings of his armor. As pieces of his armor came off, she would rest them on the chest that lay at the foot of the bed, not bothering to fold them so that they laid in a messy heap along with her corset that had also fallen from her.

He laid her down on the mattress when she was still only in her breeches and a white cotton blouse. A heady moan escaped her lips as she felt his teeth in her shoulder again. The sensation forced a shiver to crawl down her spine. Her control was flagging and she wanted him to touch her everywhere, which was not a desire she needed to give voice to.

Especially seeing as his hands were already tugging the hem of her blouse up to expose her middle, the curve of her waist and the plush underside of her cleavage. Cool air kissed her skin and she bit her lip as he began to travel down her body in a beeline made of tiny kisses. His lips moved down and his hands traveled up. Nadia closed her eyes as his fingertips pressed tiny circular motions into her ribs and she tried not to laugh at the tickle that jolted from her sensitive skin.

There was only one thing that could ruin this perfect moment... and it came in the form of a tiny voice in her head telling her this was wrong. She tried to ignore it, her hands helping him remove her clothes piece by piece, but as his hands ran up her sides, thumbs rubbing against her stomach on the way to cup her cleavage, she balked.

“U-um… Marcus….”  
“Hmmm…?” He was only half listening, having lost himself in her scent. He felt his fingers tracing the curves of her abdomen.

“We should probably get some sleep, don’t you think?” She asked and she inwardly hated the way he paused. Even though part of her hated it thoroughly, the spell was effectively shattered and his fingers paused as they barely touched the undersides of her breast and he realized what he was doing. He took his hands away from her and he nodded, clearing his throat.

“Y-yes, your majesty… you’re right. We should… we should sleep.” He peeled himself away from her and she gave him an apologetic look. It took every last ounce of her self-control not to just pull him back and continue. Especially when she realized his tanned cheeks were flushed. It was totally obvious what was on his mind, and Nadia couldn't blame him, because she wanted it too, but still... This wasn't the time or place for such things.

Since there was only one bed, they shared it at Nadia’s insistence. It was nice to be able to sleep on something softer than hard ground for once and she enjoyed it so much that she fell asleep pretty quick. Her head rested upon his arm as she slept, blonde strands of hair falling in her face in little curls. She ended up dreaming about something ridiculous that made no sense at all and she wouldn’t remember what it was about when she woke up. All that she could recall was an overwhelming sense of loneliness.

***

“One-way ‘cross is 30 silver a head and a cryst apiece for the hosses.”  
“ _What?!_ ”

Nadia and Marcus were talking with the ferryman down by the docks, Nadia was holding the reins of both horses while Marcus haggled with the man that was eyeing Nadia with a somewhat creepy smirk.

“All we have is enough for 50 silver for the two of us and the horses.” Marcus said, sounding desperate.

The man looked at him and then chortled. “That ain’t ‘gosheebull” He spat on the floor and then pointed at Nadia.

“However, I can be purshwaded. Gimme a go with yer conk’bine an’ ya can cross fer free.” Marcus looked at Nadia quickly to see that she had been paying attention. She saw alarm pass across his expression and wondered if she looked as furious as she felt. She let go of the reins and as she summoned a spell, she heard Marcus yell “Nadia, no!”

It was too late to stop her. She summoned the magic to her fingertips and cast an ice spell that would encase the ferriman in a block of ice from the waist down.

“How. DARE. You?” She snarled at him. She took out a silver piece and threw it at him as Marcus hurried her and the horses onto the ferry and cast it off the dock. He tied the horses to the railing and pulled them across the river by the rope that tied the barge into the same route across the river, keeping it from being swept away. They seemed to escape just in time as a crowd gathered around the ferriman in alarm.

Nadia was still shaking with rage as they crossed.

“I have half a mind to go back and freeze his other half.” She said, to which Marcus glanced at her warily.

“Calm down, Nadia. You’re not the princess out here. A lot of people are going to think the way that guy did about us travelling together. You shouldn’t be so sensitive. Performing offensive magic like that in cities is illegal, by the way.”

Nadia sighed. “You’re right, I forgot. It’s just… ugh. I’ve never been treated that way before, so of course I’m angry. I don’t know if I can get used to the idea of people treating me that way.” She sat down on the floor of the ferry and for a time they crossed in silence.

“I hope they don’t arrest us for that.” She muttered.

Marcus chuckled and she looked up at him in surprise. “They won’t. We’re going to western Nemal. They don’t share criminal history with Eastern Nemal. We’ll be safe there as long as there aren’t any more outbursts.”

Nadia looked down at her feet. “I understand.”

She felt like a child who’d been chastised for bad behavior. She made a promise to herself to be more conscientious of her surroundings in the future. She also realized that she was glad to have Marcus around. Without him to tell her these things, that encounter could have been a lot worse.

She had a lot to learn about commoner life, and as a commoner himself, she thought Marcus was perhaps the best person to teach her about life outside the palace. She made a silent agreement to follow his lead from now on, because even though he said they wouldn’t be arrested in Western Nemal for a crime committed in Eastern Nemal, she wanted to be sure not to commit any further crimes and risk getting them arrested for something else.

They reached the western ferry and the other ferriman waiting for them was paid another silver piece as he helped them unload the horses by tying off the ferry and making it more stable to get the horses to walk off it and onto the dock and then towards solid ground. They didn’t answer the man’s questions as he asked them where the Eastern Ferriman was, but sped up as much as they could down the cobbled streets.

Western Nemal was much bigger than Eastern Nemal. It made up the bulk of the city’s size with large buildings, factories and shops, houses and mansions and all manner of people filled the streets, making it impossible for them to go any faster than a trot. They headed towards the marketplace where they could find someone to tell them anything about the whereabouts of Auriel’s Stone and who had possession of it. They had no chance of catching the thief, but right now, that didn’t matter as much as getting the stone back as soon as possible.

Their first day didn’t yield any results, most of the merchants didn’t know what they were talking about because they assumed the stone was still in Polaris and hadn’t yet learned the truth of what had happened. Nadia thought that was odd, but mostly she just found it irritating. Marcus tried to make her feel better by rubbing her back a bit, but she shrugged him off.

“We need to look for someone who has dealings with the smugglers.” She said as they returned to the tavern they were staying in. “That’ll be our gate into the Black Market. What we found out today is how deep the tick is dug into the workings of the city. The merchants either don’t know anything or they know something and just aren’t willing to tell us for fear we’re agents of the king that will disrupt their profits.”

“If the merchants are making profit by dealing with the smugglers, it’s unlikely they’ll want to deal with us… or expose that they’re making profit with criminals.” Marcus said as he watched Nadia punch the wardrobe and then shake her hand. He chuckled to himself as she let out a tiny _ow!_ and sucked on her knuckles. He quieted, though, when she glared at him.

“This isn’t funny!”  
“I know.” He laid down on the bed he had chosen. This tavern was much nicer than the one they stayed in last night and the room they had rented blessed them with two beds. They wouldn’t have to awkwardly share a bed like they had done last night.

Nadia watched him lay there and then sighed. “I’m sorry. Just, this whole situation is frustrating. It’s like you said, if that stone gets loaded onto one of those Schooners, it’s gone forever.”

She sat down on her bed. “It’s not like we have nothing riding on finding that stone as soon as possible.” Nadia rested her head in her hands and rubbed at her temples. She could feel a headache starting to pound against the back of her head and she didn’t want to think about this anymore than she had to. Laying down, she tugged the strings to her corset loose and soon fell asleep to escape the painful throbbing.

Only, it didn’t go away when she woke up.

Nadia rolled over with a groan and she waved to get Marcus’s attention. She saw him look at her with concern in his eyes.  
“Are you okay, Nadia?” He asked, sitting up to come crouch by her bedside. She groaned again.  
She felt him press his hand to her forehead. It was like a block of ice was being pressed against her skin.

“Holy gods, you’re burning up!” He said. She heard the alarm in his voice and looked up at his face. She could just make out his expression through eyes that were really blurry with sleep.

“I’ll call for a doctor.” He said and he pulled his hand away, but Nadia grabbed his wrist.  
“No…. please don’t leave.” She croaked.  
“I’m sorry, but I have to. You rest here.”

She felt him pull his hand free and heard him leave the room with the sound of the door opening and closing. When he was gone she gave a sigh and let herself doze off into a string of fevered dreams.

Nadia had no idea how much time had passed before Marcus returned with a doctor, but she was in too much pain to really acknowledge his return. Later, when they brought her fever down and she was more coherent, she would find out that she had contracted measles.

The Doctor was slightly perplexed at an adult contracting it, considering that measles was primarily a child’s disease. Unless she had never come into contact with it before, she should have been immune to it. Marcus had to tell the doctor that she was the Princess and as she grew up in the palace away from commoners, she had never had it as a child.  
The Doctor was paid for his silence on Nadia’s identity, and sent on his way.

“I guess this means you’ll be doing the investigation without me...” Nadia said when they were alone. Marcus said nothing but laid down on top of the blankets next to her.

“Don’t worry about the investigation. You just focus on getting better.” He said. The tone he used was similar to what would be used when visiting the deathbed of a loved one. Under normal circumstances, this would irritate her and her brows furrowed with disapproval. However, she had no interest in starting a fight and had no energy for it either, so she let it go this time.

Yawning, she rolled onto her side to face away from him and felt his arm rest on her waist. It was the last thing she was conscious of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that? NSFW in my book? NO WAY! lol
> 
> It's too early for those types of shenanigans. hehehe...


	7. Disillusionment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eeee, I've been sitting on this chapter for a bit now. and I could hardly contain it. xD
> 
> Well, Nadia is over her sickness and just in time for exciting things to happen! :D
> 
> Too bad she has reeeeeally bad judgement...
> 
> anyways, Enjoy!

Waiting for Nadia to get better created a huge setback in their plans. She was bedridden in the tavern room for four whole days while Marcus did the investigating. On the fifth day, her fever finally broke and she got steadily better after that.

Marcus’s investigation had gotten them in good with one of the merchant families, who had in turn gotten them in contact with a group of Smugglers known as the White Ravens. The Ravens had an extensive network of traders and smugglers and thieves that ruled the inner workings of Nemal.

The morning that started their second week in Nemal, Nadia was well enough to get caught up on the investigation. She was sitting up in a chair and eating a plate of eggs and bread that Marcus had brought her. There was also a pitcher of orange juice and both of them had a cup full.

“... So through the Spitz family, I learned how to get in with the White Ravens.” Marcus said as Nadia chewed and listened. She swallowed the last bite and washed it down with juice before she responded.

“That’s good work, Marcus. When do we meet with the White Ravens?” She asked.

“Tonight. I brought you some new clothes. We’ll need to look like them if we want to have any chance of convincing them to work with us.” Marcus said as he picked up her empty plate and as he got close, he checked her forehead again.

Thankfully, her fever was still gone and Nadia shrugged him off. “Go on, I’ll get dressed while you take that back down to the innkeeper. Give them an extra 10 silver for their kindness at letting us stay here while I got better.”

Marcus left with a small “Yes, ma’am” and Nadia got up to find the clothes, which turned out to be some unassuming mercenary armor. The clothes consisted of a chainlink shirt and a leather cuirass with leather breeches. She put her boots on last and when she finally draped the cloak over her shoulders, she pulled the hood up over her messy blonde curls. She inspected herself in a mirror and grinned. No one would recognize her in this get-up. She looked like a seasoned sellsword.  
She strapped her sword to her hip with her belt and put on the gloves that Marcus had bought her. Her outfit completely finished, she pocketed the room key and locked the door on her way out to meet up with Marcus. The man was talking with the innkeeper, who smiled as he saw Nadia come down the stairs.

“Good to see you yet live. I’m to assume the sickness is gone?” He asked.

“Yes it is, and to thank you for letting us stay, I would like to pay to replace the mattress you had to burn.” She said as she got out her coin purse and began counting out silver pieces.

“That’s unnecessary, but thank you.” His eyes lit up as she placed a stack of fifty silver pieces down on the counter, which were quickly swept into a till box behind the bar.

“We’ll be staying one more night so we’ll pay for the room tomorrow when we leave.” Marcus added.

“Alright then, Have a nice day in Nemal.” The innkeeper waved them off and returned to washing mugs as they walked out into the street.

Marcus led the way down the streets, around corners, and such until they were near the docks and Nadia wrinkled her nose in disgust as she inhaled a particularly strong odor wafting from up ahead. She paused and pinched her nose with her thumb and forefinger.

“Ugh! What is that?” She asked. The stench was so strong it was making her eyes water, and she didn’t think she could stand going towards it where it got even stronger.

“Fish Market. The White Ravens make their hideout in the sewers, and the only way in is through here, so I’m told… So, you’ll have to get used to bad stench.” Marcus answered her with an expression that was both amused and apologetic somehow. Now that he’d said that, she could identify the scent of fresh fish, but it was overwhelmed by something rotten and salty, as though some of the fish being sold as fresh were already gone and rotting away in the sun.

Nadia swallowed and took her hand away from her mouth as she walked forward with him. She tried not to breath too much, but even not breathing was making her feel sick. Marcus glanced at her and laughed at her expression.

“I owe you some candied pecans after this, I know.” He said. Nadia let him place his arm around her shoulders as they walked. He was trying to comfort her and she knew it, but she appreciated the gesture anyway.

“Better be a big bag.” She muttered as they traversed through the fish market. Western Nemal was so much bigger than Eastern Nemal that the street the Fish Market was on was about 25 kilometers running parallel to the river, so there were lots of twists and turns and the cobblestone street was also giving access to the docks that stretched out over the water into piers and warehouses that held all the goods to come in and out of both sides of Nemal.

The street was so packed with people that there were no carriages using this road. Stacks of crates made various table tops upon which were nets laid out with fish in them that people were perusing over as possible dinner choices. Fish was cheap and easy to cook, so it was a favorite of those that had little money. Though there were some types of fish that were prized by nobles more than others. Those types of fish sold like Zeboar steaks and wouldn’t be found here, Nadia was sure.

In spite of the stench, the market was a lively place and Nadia soon found herself jostled about by the crowd while trying to follow Marcus. She kept her hand on her coin purse, knowing that a guild of thieves made their life down here made her extra cautious about their money.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her out of the crowd and she was relieved to see Marcus leading her down an empty alleyway. Nadia straightened herself out and followed him towards a sewer grate at the end of the alley where it dead ended into a tall stone wall. She watched as Marcus pulled up the grate and looked down it.

Nadia looked down it as well and then glared at him. “Two bags.”

“Deal.” He said as he pushed the grate aside and jumped down. He had to bend his head down to get into the pipe, Nadia heard the sloshing of his boots through some unknowable liquid and she almost refused to go down there. However, she steeled her nerve and jumped down into the pipe. They pulled the grate back over the entrance together and then Marcus lead the way down the pipe until they got to a main waterway where a few men were sitting at a table with candles lighting their card game. They were both wearing close to the same things that Nadia and Marcus were wearing and when they noticed Marcus and Nadia, they dropped their hands and unsheathed their daggers.

“State your name and purpose here.” One of them said, his voice dangerously quiet. It was like a whispered voice that snaked its way into her mind and Nadia shivered inwardly as it graced her ears. She was beginning to feel like this might not have been such a good idea.

“I am called Ser. Just Ser. This is Gold.” Marcus said as he motioned to her. Nadia gave him a questioning look, but didn’t say anything. Needing a codename for this meeting didn’t make her feel any safer, but she trusted Marcus enough to let him handle this.

“Ah… so you’re him. Captain said you’d be down. He didn’t mention you had a partner.” The man with the eerily quiet hissing voice pulled his hood down and it was revealed that he was a Saurian. The lizard-like features of his face jarred against the humanish faces that Nadia was used to. She also realized that assuming the Saurian was a man was probably not a good thing to do. Saurians were sexually ambiguous, so it was impossible to tell males from females unless you happened to be romantically involved with one, or they told you.

“I wasn’t feeling very good, so this is the first time I’ve been out of bed in a week. I apologize for the surprise. May we pass?” Nadia asked, also pulling her hood down so that they could see why she was called Gold. Her hair cascaded down her back in messy ringlets. She figured it was only polite. She saw Marcus do the same and when he did, the Raven’s put their daggers away, though the Saurian did not.

“I suppose. But you’ll leave your weapons here.”

Nadia sighed and unstrapped her sword from her belt. They disarmed, laying all their weapons on the table. Marcus’s consisted of his greatsword, and a shortsword. Nadia’s consisted of her bow and quiver, her longsword, and the dagger she had hidden in her boot. She placed these things on the table and the Saurian had it’s friends pat them down to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

“I don’t mean to appear rude, but… what pronouns do you prefer?” Nadia asked as she was patted. She was trying to make polite conversation.

“Saarthek is female.” The saurian said with a nod. Nadia thought she could see the hint of a smile wrinkling the reptilian face of the saurian. She smiled back and the Saurian turned away, her tail flicking about under her cloak like a snake. She would lead them down the sidewalk that existed along the waterway. It made it so they weren’t wading through filth even though the stone underfoot was still damp and the smell made Nadia want to gag, but she managed to keep it to herself. They would reach a large cave in where the waterway was obviously damaged. A cave opened up here and it led them down into ancient ruins of some kind. The sides were carved into walls and pillars that held up the roof, though some of the pillars had cracked and crumbled, falling to block the way forward. However, the cave was so tall that they could climb over without a problem. In fact, when Nadia looked up, she saw the roof arched overhead, so far she could hardly make out any details. She whispered a spell that would send a ball of light up there and illuminate what she couldn’t see in the dark. A straight double line of broken glass panels were covered in so much dirt and grime that it was at first, hard to tell what they were. Silver metal bars separated the ceiling into sections, some of which were hanging off the ceiling into precarious positions. Nadia was surprised a few of them were still up there.

Black, rope-like things hung from the high roof in tangles, and some were broken. These she kept away from, for they were the ones that were quiet most of the time, but as she looked, she saw a few spout sparks of some kind. Nadia was intrigued. Was it magic? Or something else?  
She thought that maybe ten fully grown men might be able to stand on each other’s shoulders in here and they would still not touch the ceiling. Whoever had made these tunnels had built them to last.

“What ruins are these?” She asked, looking around at all the masonry work around her. The style didn’t match any of the artwork and pottery she had seen from any of the known ruins that existed around the continent of Kelt. And she had had history tutors teach her most all there was to know about all the civilizations to have ever called Kelt home.

“We don’t know and we don’t care. They serve a purpose.” Saarthek said as she led them down the passage that was obviously a highway of some sort. Perhaps a trade route from one great city to another? That was the only reason that struck her as plausible for why this place was so huge and tall. However, there were houses built into the walls, doorways that would lead into rooms. A perfect place for a large smuggling operation to run goods into or out of a city… assuming there was a second exit somewhere. Saarthek led them into a doorway off the main passage that opened into a large room that had been furnished as a living room.

“Wait here.” Saarthek hissed at them before she walked up some stone stairs to a second floor.

While she was gone, Nadia cast her gaze around the room and noted how richly decorated the room was. Apparently, the White Ravens were benefiting handsomely from the arrangement they had with the Merchant families in Nemal. Or at least, their boss was.

Something white caught her attention and when she looked, Nadia’s eyes widened. An actual albino raven was perched upon a coat hanger in the corner of the room, it’s beady, pinkish black eyes watching them. Nadia tilted her head as she watched the bird. It ruffled it’s feathers and turned its back on her, though it kept looking over its shoulder at them.

Nadia didn’t have time to contemplate the smugglers namesake for almost as soon as she noticed the raven, they heard the telltale thunks of a peg-legged man walking down the stairs. He was a burly, fierce bear of a man. Hard, thick muscles bulged under the trench coat he wore, the sleeves of which were rolled up to show his hairy, scarred forearms and when his face came into view, Nadia took a step back.

He had one eye hidden by a patch which did nothing to hide the scars that criss-crossed across his face. All of them seemed to connect behind the patch, making her wonder what kind of harm he had come to to cause that. It was like he had taken an arrow to the face and lived to tell the tale. The scars carved a notch across the bridge of his nose and cut hairless lines into his otherwise scruffy brown beard that Nadia felt was in desperate need of a hairbrush. His one good eye was the color of the stormy seas, he had his hair flattened against his head behind a bandanna that was tied to his head. He hefted a weapon that Nadia had never seen before, but had heard about.

It was long and thin and crafted of a black metal tube enclosed at one end. The Matchlock Musket, as it was being called, was a step up from the centuries old “Hand Cannon” The wooden stock added to the end made it easier to handle from the crude weaponry it was fashioned after. He must have seen her eyeing his weaponry because he laughed and put the thing down.

“Haaaaharhar… Scared you, did I?” He asked as he sat down in a chair and dug a pipe out of his pocket. He pinched a bit of tobacco out of a tin on the desk in front of him and patted it down into the pipe. He struck a tinder box and the sparks that flew from the thing would catch the pipe’s contents on fire. He stomped out the other ones and then puffed on his pipe, watching them with his one good eye.

“I hear ya been lookin’ fer li’l ol’ me.” He said, breathing out a cloud of smoke. Nadia tried not to be rude and wrinkle her nose at the smell of burning tobacco. It made her head swim but she didn’t want to ruin their chances of earning this man’s cooperation, so she said nothing and forced herself to maintain a straight face.

“That’s right, Mr…?” She asked, looking from him to Marcus and back.

“No need to be so formal, missy. Call me Rowan.” He waved a hand at her as he continued to puff on his pipe, watching them intently.

“Rowan. Right.” Nadia looked at where Saarthek was standing in the corner of the room. She didn’t feel there was any reason to hide who she was anymore, so she took a step forwards. This man didn’t strike her as the kind who would intentionally endanger the entire kingdom. After all, the destruction of the kingdom would also destroy his current profitable life.

“I am Princess Nadia.” Marcus gave a gasp and looked at her sharply, but she ignored him. “And this is my bodyguard, Ser Marcus. We have travelled far in search of something that has put all of Auraelias in danger. A thief has stolen Auriel’s Stone from the Diamond Citadel. All of the Major Cities, including Nemal are vulnerable to forces that would do Auraelias harm. We believe the thief travelled here and might have tried to get rid of it via sale.” Nadia said.

For a long time there was silence as the man tweaked his beard and puffed his pipe, apparently deep in thought.

“How do I know yer tellin’ the truth?” He asked at last. Nadia took off the ring that was still on her hand. She showed him the crest that was stamped into the crude gold. “This is the royal seal of the Montematio family. This ring has passed from crown heir to crown heir for hundreds of thousands of years. There’s no other ring in the world like it. If that doesn’t prove who I am, I don’t know what else to tell you.”

The man leaned forward to study the crest more closely, his expression changed from doubtful to awed. “Well,” He paused as though he were at a loss for words and sat back. “Shit.” He swore as he contemplated the truth of what she had just said.

“You say the thief took off with Auriel’s stone?”  
“Yes.”  
“When?”  
“About two weeks ago, in the dead of night.”  
“Alright. so let’s say I help you find this asshole. What then? You be shuttin’ down my operation here?” He asked suspiciously. Nadia waved her hand.

“As long as I have bigger fish to fry, you’re safe. And even then, I might not as long as you remain useful to me. Which means you work for the crown now as my eyes and ears down here.” Nadia said with a sly smile. She put the ring back on her right middle finger and glanced over at Marcus, who still looked around warily now that their cover was blown.

There was a lapse in their conversation as Rowan thought and then a smile tugged on his scarred lips and he let out a hearty laugh. “I like the sound a that. Royal sanction means we ain’t gotta worry about guards puttin’ us away fer makin’ a profit.”

Nadia began to relax, but there was a cough from the corner of the room and when she looked, Nadia saw Saarthek give a tiny shake of her head as she glared at Rowan. The man looked at her too and scowled.

“What?” He asked. She didn't answer but her gaze narrowed. Nadia’s hope that this would go much smoother than Marcus had prepared them for evaporated as the Saurian came to whisper into Rowan’s ear and she saw the man’s eyes darken.

“My second says the ring’s fake. You are lying and your deal means nothing to us. However, IF you are who you say you are, I know a few people who would love the chance to auction off a noble into a life of servitude.”

Nadia’s eyes widened and she saw Marcus reach for his hip as thouNadia were searching for his blade, which had been left back at the entrance to the sewers. “Over my dead body!” He growled as he threw his arm out as though to shield her from Rowan. Nadia glared at him and stepped out from behind him. “How dare you? There's no slavery in Auraelias!”

“No slav-....” Rowan was caught off guard by that statement but then he laughed a deep, raucous series of barks. Tears of mirth leaked down into his thick beard and he had to hold himself up by placing his hand flat on the desk while his other arm gripped at his stomach and he bent double until the laughter subsided and he looked up at them with a dangerous smirk.

“Oh wow… you’ve lived a sheltered life to even dare make that statement down here. Grab ‘em.”

Within a matter of seconds, the room was flooded with white raven smugglers that all had their weapons drawn and from every angle, daggers and arrows were pointed at them.

Marcus pinched the bridge of his nose with an irritated sigh as Nadia raised her hands in surrender. She heard him curse under his breath as they were clapped in irons and chains.


	8. Tiger Lily

“Gods dammit, Nadia.”

Marcus said again. They were sitting in the middle of one of the rooms of the ruins that Nadia now knew acted as a highway for the slave trade that ran underground. The White Ravens were maintaining a steady profit by tolling the illegal trafficking of slaves in and out of the city by use of these ruins and the tunnels they provided. The various rooms along the walls were now being used as holding cells for the “product.”

They were not alone in this room. Nadia had seen people of all kinds come and go as they were brought in and sold. Saurians, Anemae, and Centaurs, mostly, though sometimes she would see other humans. Right now, they were sharing the room with a Bovine Anemae and her children, who were engaged in prayer, as they cowered against the corner of the room where they were chained. The “slaves” were all wearing scratchy burlap clothing, and Nadia could see where the slavers had branded the mother with a serial number on her stomach just above her hip. It looked recent and it was obviously hurting her a lot, for the skin beneath it was swollen and darker than the rest of her blue-black skinned hide.

They’d been chained down here for three whole days. In that time, Nadia had been taken from the room only once to be examined by a doctor, who assessed her worth by how healthy she was.

“How was I supposed to know they were slave traders? I thought the practice had been stamped out of Auraelias.” She shot back at Marcus.

“Shut. Up.” The anemae woman spat at her and Nadia looked up to see the calves were looking at her with fear in their eyes. Nadia sighed.

“You can’t shelter them forever.” She said, sympathetically.

“I can damn well try, can’t I?” The cow retorted. “I don’t have much time left…” she hugged her children close and nuzzled them both. Nadia heard her murmur “It’s alright, my sweets…” and she turned away to look at where Marcus was sitting with his knees hugged against his chest and his head sitting back against the wall. He was staring at the ceiling distantly.

Nadia sighed and closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall to try and sleep. The cuff around her ankle made it hard to get comfortable, but she still managed to doze off.

Nadia didn’t know how long she was out. By the time she came to, the Bovine and her children were gone, leaving Marcus and her alone again. Marcus was asleep, and for a moment she couldn’t understand what had woken her. She closed her eyes and began to doze off again, but a distant clamor roused her and she perked up. The sound of voices shouting at each other grew closer and louder. She frowned at the clatter of hooves and the thud of bodies against stone.

“UNHAND ME, YOU PLEBEIANS! BLACKGUARDS! BLOODY TITS!”

The aggressive shout came with an accompanying whinny and Marcus started awake as Nadia crawled towards the door as much as she could to look through the crack in the wall at what was happening out there.

She saw a cloven hoof strike a smuggler square in the chest and send him flying. The hoof was connected to a feathered leg and the leg was connected to the fiery chestnut body of a centaur mare. There were several ropes and chains hobbling her front legs and arms but that didn’t stop her from sending hateful swears to her captors and to strike at them with her teeth or back legs. The smugglers had been smart enough to blindfold her, so this hindered her aim by a smidge. Nadia took time to admire the mare’s spiteful spirit.

Her horse body was stout and elegant at the same time, muscles gleamed under a bright copper coat splashed with flecks of white upon her rump. Her human half merged seamlessly at the waist with the withers of the horse half. Her tail, peppered with red and white hairs, was cropped short and her hair was a mahogany auburn color, pulled back into a loose braid. When she looked this way, Nadia could see that her face was splattered with freckles, which also dusted her chest, shoulders, and forearms. Her ears were long and pointed, swiveling about to pick up noises around her since she was blind for the moment.

One of the smugglers came up behind her with a white-hot iron poker in hand. When he was close enough, he struck the mare’s hindquarters with the business end. She squealed in agony as the iron burned her hide and she bolted forward, stumbled onto her knees, and cursed.

“Get up, you damn nag!” The smuggler shouted at her and struck her again. The mare squealed but did not get up. Nadia felt a rage such that she had never felt before as the smuggler beat the centaur again and again with the hot iron, his cruel face making her sick.

“Stop…” she said.

“Nadia?” Marcus said as he saw her face. She must have looked as angry as she felt because he looked worried. Nadya stood up.

“I. Said. STOP IT!!”

All at once, a blue-white light exploded from her. Agony ripped its way up her spine and jabbed her in the eyes as she was blinded by the sudden brightness. Pillars of fire blasted in a sphere from her body and the floor shifted and shook beneath them. The explosion didn’t only incinerate the room they were in, it destroyed the door and the chains holding them and the blast engulfed half the smugglers, including the man with the hot iron. Pure white feathers rained down upon all of them, but were also incinerated in the flames that were soon dying out as they ran out of things to burn. It was magic fire, that much was apparent by its harmlessness to the centaur or Marcus. This fire had specific targets in the smugglers, those men it burned without mercy.

Before any of them could even register what had happened, the quake of the ground shook even harder rather than dying out and a rumble started up in the distance. Nadia and Marcus looked at each other and his expression mirrored her fear. “Earthquake!” Someone screaming the word roused the two of them into action. They ran for the door and out into the main hallway which was shaking more violently. Big sections of the ceiling were cracking and crumbling loose to fall on the unwary below. They were about to run away from the cave-in, but Nadia skidded to a stop beside the centaur mare. She whispered a spell that would snap the chains and break the ropes away from her body. Another whispered spell and the burns and wounds cauterized, healing to the point she was able to stand and run.

The three of them ran with the mare trotting beside them before she rolled her eyes and grabbed them both. Pulling them onto her back, she broke into a gallop and raced through the rubble raining down upon them, dodging boulders and leaping over piles of rocks.

They didn’t slow down until they had left the cave-in far behind and the rumbling faded into silence. The mare slowed to a stop and looked back at them. “Off.”

She snorted firmly. They obeyed without question, and she softened a bit when she saw their respect of her.

“What... in the name of Auriel’s flaming pantaloons was  _ that _ ?” Marcus asked, staring at Nadia as they both bent double, gasping for breath. Nadia was shaking as her magic use caught up with her and her adrenaline faded off. His question was a sound one, but Nadia found she had no clear answer to give him.

“I… don’t know.” She gasped. “I just… saw them beating you.” She glanced at the centaur. “And I just got so… angry. I’ve been angry before, but… not like that. That was… it was like my insides were on fire.” She knitted her brows together as she thought about it and glanced at Marcus to see he was looking at her worriedly.

She stood up straight and massaged a stitch in her side. “I’m okay, though. I think.” She took a step and stumbled onto her knees with a gasp of pain.

“Nadia!” Marcus was at her side in an instant. She tried to wave him off.

“I’m fine. Whatever it was, it took a lot out of me… I just need rest.”

“We won’t get a lot of that down here. I’ll carry her on my back for a time.” The mare was staring back along the way they had come.

“That would be appreciated, but why are you helping us?” Marcus asked, suddenly suspicious.

The mare flashed him a look, her eyes were a bright golden color. They gleamed intensely in the dim light. “I’m helping  _ her _ . Not you. She’s the one that saved me from a life spent in humiliation.”

“If I’m to ride you, I’ll be needing your name.” Nadia said before Marcus could answer. She figured she’d better intervene before things got heated between them. She remembered that Marcus was originally from Pelepanesia. Pelepanesian people had  the most trouble with Centaurs raiding their villages, especially the ones edging the vast amount of forests that spread across the mountainous terrain. There was a long history of bad blood between the two races, and it wasn’t likely to make the three of them get out of here any easier unless Nadia acted as peacekeeper.

The mare seemed content to drop the subject for now and instead helped Nadia to mount her back.

“Tsila.” She said. When neither Marcus or Nadia said anything, the mare sighed. “Lily. My name is Lily.”

“Lily. Right.” Nadia said as she held The centaur by the waist. They began to walk into the dark and as they did, silence fell as their situation dawned on them all. They were trapped in dark tunnels where any number of dangers existed. They had no weapons, no supplies, and no way of knowing where to go to get back to the surface world. The only way to go was forward, and that is what they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited to FINALLY introduce Lily to you guys :DD
> 
> I hope you enjoy her spunk as much as I do. xD
> 
> Also, Marcus os just like "Centaurs... >:U" xD


	9. The Ancient Road

They were lost. That much was obvious though none of them admitted it out loud. Whoever built these underground highways had built them to last, and to confuse. Without a map, it was impossible to tell where they were or how to get out… or even if there was a way out. The ancient road they had started on had a lot of damage- natural fissures and tunnels carved out by unknown beasts made it hard to tell which way to go. There were also more cave ins, as they came to blocked tunnels. However, the addition of Lily to their team was swiftly becoming a blessing.

The fiery centaur may have a few things to say about everything (her attitude had no restraints, truly) but she had a strange, uncanny sense for nature.

“Here.” She had said one day as she handed Nadia what looked and felt like a mushroom, or some kind of fungus. Nadia wrinkled her nose at the pungent smell.

“What’s this?” She had asked, inspecting it warily as if it might spring to life and bite her.

“Food.” Lily had said with a small chuckle. “It’s edible, don’t worry. Just eat, we won’t last long down here without food. Especially not you, princess.”

Marcus had not liked her insistence that they needed to eat only the things she told them too, and an argument had broken out about it. One that Nadia had had to mediate before it got too far. She ate the mushrooms with her face screwed up as the revolting taste spread on her tongue. It was disgusting, and Nadia could taste cold dirt where nasty unknown creepers crawled, but… she found that it had a rustic earthy taste that might come out if it were cooked. More importantly, Lily was right. It didn’t poison her and she felt a little better, stronger, once the fungus was settled in her stomach. She just had to muscle her way past that initial disgust.

Nerves were frayed from their predicament, and Nadia was too tired from using her magic to conjure a heatless ball of burning gas to light their path to tolerate much bickering, so she simply shoved a mushroom in Marcus’s mouth. “Shut. Up.” She said. “Just eat it, and stop complaining.” He gave her a look, but Nadia ignored him as they continued walking.

This “terrasense” as Nadia had taken to calling it, allowed her to find mushrooms and plants that were edible. They would pick as many as they could whenever she found some and the mushrooms would sustain them for a while… it was hard to tell how many days they had been stuck wandering in the darkness.

It could have been months or only a scant few days, but eventually, their wanderings brought them to a faint glow in the distance. The sound of trickling water dribbling down one side of the cave caught Lily’s attention and after a quick inspection with a spell that detected poison, Nadia and Lily both deemed it good enough. They took turns drinking their fill of the water as it streamed into cupped hands and then began to harvest the moss that grew up around the wet stone.

They kept walking, an unspoken agreement to check out the light ahead as they all started heading in the same direction.

The closer they got to the ight, the hotter the tunnel became, until Nadia stopped in her tracks and wiped sweat from her forehead.

“I don’t… think that’s… a way out.” She panted, reaching out to touch Lily on her hind quarters as the centaur walked ahead.

“Yeah… why is it so hot?” Lily asked of no one in particular. She took the time they were deciding what to do now to rebraid her long white and auburn hair.She tied it off with a natural knot.

Marcus was the only one who didn’t stop. In fact when the two women did, he ran forwards. “Come on, girls. We can’t stop now. We’re almost out!” He said, Nadia looked up in alarm.

“Marcus, no. Come back!” She called after him, but he didn’t stop. Lily rolled her eyes and galloped after him. Nadia was close on her heels and the three of them barreled towards the stifling heat and light that grew the closer they got.

Suddenly, there was a strangled cry from up ahead and Nadia’s heart skipped a beat as she watched Marcus stumble and try to stop. He was at the edge of a cliff and losing his balance.

“MARCUS!” She cried out as she doubled her pace. Lily got there first and grabbed him by the back of his burlap clothing. She yanked him back just as he was starting to fall forward and he landed on his rump on the stone ledge rather than in a slow-moving river of lava some 300 feet below them. The ledge stretched out beyond the opening of the tunnel they were in to form an overhang. Nadia looked over the edge and down into the river of molten rock and brimstone flowing sluggishly along it's course. She shivered at the thought of how close Marcus had come to dying. Marcus, on the other hand, simply stood up, brushed himself off and muttered a grudging "thanks" into his growing beard.

As one might imagine, this situation did nothing to help with the mood of the travellers. They bickered a lot, and when they weren’t bickering, they were hungry.

“....Hey. Is that a light up ahead?” Nadia asked as she lead them along a new dark path. She squinted and craned her neck as she heard Lily walk up beside her.

“Yes. It is. And I can sense plants ahead.” Said the centaur. Cloven hooves clipped against the stone as the mare walked on ahead.

“Wait, wait!” Marcus said from behind her as he caught up to Nadia. She saw Lily roll her eyes in the faint light of the burning gas light that Nadia had conjured up to light their way.

“What is wrong with him now?” Lily asked, doing nothing to hide her distaste as she looked back at Marcus. Marcus gave the centaur a look but ignored her tone, to Nadia’s relief. The last thing they needed was another row.

“Firstly, I still don’t believe your ‘terrasense’ is a real thing that exists. You made it up to impress us and have been slowly poisoning us. Or something.” Marcus said as he jabbed a finger at her.

“Secondly, are we sure we want to go running towards another lightsource? It could easily just be another lava flood.” Nadia sighed.

“She said there are plants ahead. Lava floods don’t let plants exist.They’d smother them, or burn them. Even if her terrasense isn’t real, it’s saved us from starvation so far. You’re just being wary because the last time we ran towards a perceived exit, you almost fell in.” She said, interjecting the conversation before Lily could react and another fight could break out.

“But, Marcus is right. Let’s approach this more cautiously. We don’t know where we are or where we’ll be coming out. We could be in any one of the kingdoms and it’s likely that we’ll encounter some resistance as to our presence.”

Lily and Marcus both nodded and Nadia noticed with a strong wave of relief that the tempers seemed to be abated now.

As she suggested, they walked forward cautiously and it took them some time before they reached the source of the light and Lily’s growing sensation that there were plants ahead. Nadia let the centaur lead the way, figuring that if there was a cliff ahead that dropped into something dangerous, Lily was large enough that she could stop and bar their way from danger, preventing another slip up.

Thus she reached the end of the tunnel first. She stopped and Nadia looked up as she gave a gasp. “My word…”   
Curious, Nadia picked up her pace until she was jogging forward. She came to a stop next to Lily and blinked at what she saw.

It was a massive open cavern. So massive, in fact, that three Auraelian palaces could probably fit inside it without touching, surrounding grounds and all. The ceiling was perfectly dome shaped, and coated in a material that reflected light as well as any looking glass. Several cubits down below them, the ground was sectioned off into what must have once been neat and tidy gardens. Now, though, the plants had grown wild. A quick look, and Nadia could see several different kinds of familiar fruits and vegetables, and some that were not so familiar. She could see buildings in the distance, the roofs barely visible through the vines that had overtaken them. There were creatures for which she had no name living in pens, and when there were herbivores living healthy lives, there were usually carnivores too. But that was not what had her attention.

In the very center of the cavern, a massive cone-shaped crystal was situated beneath a hole in the very center of the ceiling. From here, it looked to be about the size of a full grown man in width and from it, a ray of sunlight poured through. It struck the crystal in the middle and that crystal reflected it to the outer walls of the dome, reflecting it again on all the plants growing wild beneath them. “.... It’s a greenhouse.” Nadia whispered.

“What for, though? I mean… there has to be enough food here to feed all five kingdoms and then some.” Marcus asked, quietly as he finally caught up and gazed at the sight laid before them. All three of their stomachs growled at once.

“I don’t know, but we might find clues if we explore the buildings.” Nadia said with a nod. “Come on, it’s a lift.”

She walked over to a lever in the wall and pulled it.

“Nadia, wait don’t-” Marcus said in alarm, but it was too late.

Something metallic groaned beneath them. Gears clicked and clacked as they began to revolve. Then the ground beneath them lurched, causing all of them to fall over on the ground before it began to lower them down. Slow and steady, but definitely not smooth. It was as if all the gears were rusted and stuck together in places. Marcus was gripping at the floor as though he expected it to drop out from beneath them and Lily was looking like she might be sick. It was not a pleasant ride down. When they were close to the bottom, the unpleasant ride came to a sudden stop as the lift’s gears jammed together and they lurched again.

“Oh gods we’re going to die. It’s going to drop us.” Marcus said. Nadia rolled her eyes. “It’s not going to drop us. We’re caught on a tree.” She said as she peaked over the edge of the lift. A thick tree trunk had grown out of the landing for the lift, and the lift could not go any further down because it was blocked by the tree. Almost as soon as she said that, the situation worsened. The lift beneath their feet shuddered as the gears went into overdrive trying to get down to the ground. “Well… shit.” Lily said as she stood and grabbed Marcus and Nadia. Sparks began to fly and the three of them jumped out just in time. They landed behind the tree trunk as it exploded. By some miracle, they avoided getting hit by the brunt of the explosion. This didn’t prove true for all of them, though. The tree, for one, took most of the damage and Marcus, whose arm was on fire. Lily patted him out and Nadia summoned rain to put the rest of the fires out with her magic. When she ended the spell, she felt light headed but she managed to keep herself upright with the knowledge that she had to keep going. They had to figure out a way out of here.

“Well, that was bracing.” Nadia said in the silence that followed. They walked through trees and bushes, some Nadia recognized, others not so much. She paused at an apple tree and plucked three of the juiciest looking fruit from the branches. She tossed one to Marcus and another to Lily.

“Thanks.” The centaur said as she bit into it and Marcus said nothing but the way he crunched into the fruit, she knew his thanks was evident. “It beats mushrooms.” He said through a mouthful of fruit. They all laughed.

“Why is this here?” Nadia wondered aloud again.

“I don’t know. It’s like the biggest garden I’ve ever seen.” Lily said. The wonderment in her tone was shared by Nadia and she could see it in Marcus’s expression as well. They passed through fields of vegetables and fruit trees and tall, wild grain until they got to a cluster of buildings. The walls were covered in vines and mosses, it was hard to see what the walls were even made of but when she placed her hand on it, Nadia could feel it was cold and hard, like metal. It was also a bit rough, as though it were rusted. Why would anyone waste metal to make a building when there was perfectly good stone to use? She wondered. Through some lost technology, perhaps. That might have made it easier and faster to erect metal buildings. What would they need  place like this for, though? That was a question that as yet had no answer.

“Over here!” Marcus’s voice drew her out of her thoughts and she looked up to see he was tugging open a sliding door made of broken glass. The glass was cracked and had a hole in it already. Nadia rolled her eyes and came over. She kicked the rest of the panes inward, shattering it the rest of the way and walking in without any more of a to-do. Nadia pointed at Lily. “Stay out here.”

Lily nodded. “I don’t think I can fit through the doorway anyways.” She admitted as her gaze raked across the opening It was hard to see a horse fitting through it, much less a horse and rider, which was pretty close to the same thing..

Once they were split up and Lily was left to keep watch outside, Marcus and she explored the inside of the building. It was set up like some kind of alchemy lab. Except there were instruments here that Nadia had never seen before. There were beakers and vials of liquid and all that, but there were also things, contraptions, that she couldn’t even begin to guess the purpose of. There was a grid of glass boxes on one of the wall. Some were broken, cracked or shattered, exposing a mess of wires within. However, others were lit up by some flickering source of power. She gazed into one of the boxes and was surprised to feel her hair stand on end when she got close to the flickering picture that was displayed upon the glass. She blinked and pulled away, mystified.

“Hey, Nadia?”

She turned around at Marcus’s voice calling her. He was on the other side of the room and was waving her over. She was cautiously curious as she made her way across the room towards him, stepping over boxes and overturned chairs and letting her boots leave prints in the dust. When she got close enough to see what Marcus was looking at, she recoiled. A small pile of human skeletons rested at the base of a large bookcase stacked with tiny vials.

“Why are they all here in this one place?” She wondered aloud. Marcus shook his head. “I don’t know but check this out.” He pointed at the writing that was on the bookcase. Squinting, she leaned forward as much as she dared and read the words. Mercifully, it was written in common, which was something only merchants and dignitaries could speak. Actually, most of the learned were able to speak it. A common tongue made it easier to trade goods between kingdoms and for representatives of each nation to communicate.

“....  _ Leopard, Black Bear _ …  _ Elephant, Monitor Lizard _ … What are these?” She wondered, picking up a vial and peering into the semi-opaque liquid.

“ _ D… N… A… Dah-tah… dah-tah-bah-see _ ?” Marcus asked, in common. He was reading a larger sign that hung over the large bookshelf. “Did I say that right?”

Nadia remembered that Auraelian was his only language, but he was trying to learn other languages since he had come to be her bodyguard. They didn’t often have time to practice, especially not now.

She shrugged.

“I don’t know what that word means, but I suppose so. We’d better keep searching.” She put the vial in her hands back on it’s shelf and turned to continue looking. They passed through several other rooms without incident aside from Nadia’s curiosity getting the better of her as she stopped to investigate every gadget sitting on any table that happened to catch her eye. This resulted in Marcus having to pull her out of several accidents waiting to happen.

They passed through an atrium roofed by broken glass. Shards littered the grass, making both of them glad they were wearing boots. This time, it was Marcus’s turn to investigate something. He bent over to pick something off the ground.

“Hey, Nadia? Look at this.” He showed her what he had picked up and when she looked, she raised an eyebrow. It was a giant colorful feather, mostly black at the quill but then fracturing into several bright colors, including turquoise, green, and purple. It was, by all accounts, the most beautiful feather she had ever seen, and the largest by far. She took it from him to inspect more closely and held it up to the light to find that the colors shimmered in something of a mock-metallic nature. Nadia frowned. Her studies had made her familiar with several different species of bird, but this feather didn’t belong to any of the species she could identify.

“Hmmm… well, I can tell you one thing. This came from a really big bird.” She said with a nod before she tucked the feather behind her ear. “Let’s keep looking.”

They explored the majority of the buildings and Nadia could recognize the purposes of some of the rooms they explored. For instance, the bedrooms were easy, considering the beds, bunk or not, were easily recognizable structures among the strange artifacts they found wherever they went.

When they were nearing the end of their search, Nadia had the sudden feeling they were being watched. She grabbed Marcus’s arm as he was about to open a door and when he looked at her, she subtly twitched her nostrils. It was the signal they had come up with years ago that meant danger was afoot. He nodded his head, understanding and reached down to his hip, only to once again find that they had no weapons. They both looked down at his hip and then at each other, reading their own thoughts in the other’s expression.

Suddenly, the section of wall to their immediate right exploded outwards as something massive crashed through it. Nadia felt Marcus put his arms around her waist and pull her backwards out of the way of flying debris. She squinted into the dust, barely able to make out the silhouette of some kind of four-legged beast.Then a crest of feathers sliced through the cloud of settling dust and she recognized the flashy colors at once. She detangled herself from Marcus’s grip to approach the struggling creature.

Her eyes widened when she realized what it was. A massive black lion was struggling to dislodge it’s paw from a pile of timber and torn sheets of metal. Well, she called it a lion, it was much bigger than any lion she’d ever seen, and this one was sporting a crest of brightly colored feathers rather than fur for a mane. It was around 6 feet tall at the shoulder, easily the biggest cat she’d ever seen.

When it turned to see her approaching, it gave a bellowing, guttural screech and sliced at her with it’s free paw. The sickle-shaped claws were six inches long and jaggedly sharp. It bared its sabre-like fangs at her with a warning growl rumbling through it’s chest.

“Shhh…” Nadia said, trying to soothe the strange beast with a calming tone, though she cursed herself when she heard her voice break. It was honestly nerve-wracking to be in this situation, staring down a predator that was easily four times her own weight with the muscles flexing in it’s shoulders as it tried to free itself from the rubble. This was an animal that could kill her, and probably would if it could get loose.

She closed her eyes and tried to calm her racing heartbeat before she looked at it again and raised her hand, palm flat and facing towards the animal. She envisioned her magic stretching out from her heart, traversing down her arm and radiating from her palm in an attempt to connect with the beast’s mind as she had done so before with other animals. If she could just make it understand that she was not a threat…

The beast gave a growl and swiped at her again, And she was jerked back as it’s claws passed through the empty air where she had been. Marcus had grabbed her and pulled her back out of the way again.   
“You okay, princess?” He asked, as the lion-like creature went back to trying to dislodge it’s other paw. She watched it for a long moment, her heart beating fast and her brows knitting together.

“Yes, it’s just… I wasn’t able to connect with it. It’s… weird. Not like Shadow or Blazer or any other animal I’ve met on the surface. They all seem ready to make emotional connections, to communicate with me telepathically. This thing is just… empty. There’s something there, but I can’t connect with it. Either it’s blocking me out or is simply unable to make the connection.” She shook her head in wonder.

Marcus didn’t get a chance to respond to her wonderings because at that moment, there was a clatter of stones as the beast finally got free and limped down to the ground off the pile of rubble. It prowled towards them slowly, favoring it’s one leg with the obvious intention of hunting them.

Nadia moved herself back a step, then another. She felt Marcus follow her lead as they slowly maintained the distance between them and the lion. Thankfully for them, it was still limping so it wasn’t going to lunge for the kill any time soon.

Looking around their surroundings, Nadia noticed a door to their left. She nudged Marcus and nodded to it to tell him without words where she wanted to go. He nodded in response, and the two of them began to angle their reversive steps towards the opening in the side of the hallway. The Lion would follow them just as slowly.

At least up until they were close enough to make a break for it and the Lion lunged for them. They dived behind the door and together, swung the heavy slab of what was obviously metal shut. There was a moment of sheer panic when the lion threw it’s body weight against the door from the other side and nearly overpowered them. It had it’s head, one forearm and a shoulder in through the door and was trying to snap them up in it’s jaws. Nadia summoned her magic and cast a spell that shoved the lion backwards with an invisible, unrelenting force.

The result was such that the great cat gave a whine of pain as it crashed into the opposite wall and Marcus was able to slam the door shut. As soon as it was closed, Nadia heard a lock click into place, bolting the door closed and protecting them from the predator outside.

Nadia slumped against the wall of the room, panting for breath as her panic and adrenaline faded away and made room for sense and relief to reassert themselves.

‘What the hell… was that… thing?” Marcus asked between heavy breaths as he slumped against the wall as well and fought to regain his breath.

“Some kind of… primitive beast.” She said, her mind going back to what she had felt trying to search for the lion’s consciousness. Nothing, not even the most bestial creatures that lived in the world above them, had ever felt like this. Even the most horrific of beasts had a consciousness, a sense of reason that she could connect with, communicate with. Sure, it wasn’t ever as developed as a human’s ability to reason, but each creature that existed in Kelt from the smallest mouse to the bloodthirsty werewolf, they all had a small modicum of consciousness.

Those that bothered to study them claimed that the ambient magic that existed in the world had granted them all a sense of intelligence, as varied as it could be across the wide variety of species, it still existed.

This though… this was like staring into a black void, where nothing existed except for the most base desires. Hunger, pain, fear, such emotions were felt at such a high concentration that it blocked out everything. When she prodded for the sense of intelligence all she could find was insanity. The grim idea that it was not an animal, but an abomination, settled in her thoughts. It had evolved in a place that was so alien to the one she was used to. It was better if she put it out of it’s misery. But how to do that without any weapons?

“So I guess we’re safe in here for now…” She stood up and brushed the dirt from her arms and backside. The walls were covered in grime and sitting against it had been a nasty idea in hindsight.

As the excitement ebbed from her thoughts, Nadia turned away from the door in order to explore the new room they had taken shelter inside. It was furnished in a way that reminded Nadia of the armory back at the castle. Racks of sleek black and rusted objects that she could only guess were weapons, hung off hangers and hooks along walls and cases in the middle of the room, placed back to back between benches where a guard could sit and put their boots on. Here and there, Nadia could make out some shapes she recognized, the arms of a bow, the curve of a machete blade… though they were made of materials that Nadia had never seen before. There were also other things that Nadia saw hanging of the walls. Black metal L-shaped weapons stuck in sheaths, too small to be a blade or a useable dagger.

“Don’t touch anything.” Marcus said as he saw what she was looking around at.

One such weapon was laying unsheathed on the nearest bench. It was small, sleekly crafted with a bright, pulsing blue light running down both sides of the long part of the lopsided L shape. Curiosity got the better of her and despite Marcus’s warning, Nadia walked over to the bench and picked it up.

“What do you think this is?” She asked, inspecting it. She looked at it all over, turning it around in her hand and finding that one end of the L-shaped object had a hole in it. She tried to peek in to see what she could see, but it was too dark. “Huh… maybe it’s a weird sort of crossbow? You stick the bolt in here,” She tapped the end of the barrel. “And then pull this trigger and it fires?”

As she spoke, Nadia held the thicker, shorter handle of the weapon in her hand and found it was fit to the form of her hand. Almost like it was made to be held by her. She placed her finger over what she could now see was definitely some kind of trigger and gave it a test squeeze.

“Nadia, I don’t think you should be messing around with that-”

A blast of light shot from the end of the weapon and when it hit the wall, it expanded and shattered into a blast of light and sparks. Dust and smoke filled the room, leaving the two of them coughing.

“What did I just say?” Marcus asked between coughs. Nadia could see him waving his hands to try and clear the smoke and she reached out with her free hand to pat his shoulder, telling him where she was. When the dust finally settled and they could assess the damage, they saw that the shot she’d just fired off had blasted a giant hole through the wall.

On closer inspection, it was discovered that rather than being blasted, the metal wall had been melted.

Nadia looked down at the weapon with a raised eyebrow. “Wow. It must be some kind of magic focusing device.”

“You mean, like a wand?” Marcus asked.

“Or a staff, yes.” She nodded.

“Did it drain you to use it?”

“Um… a little, there was a bit of a kick back when I pulled the trigger and my arm hurts a bit from that, but it’s not too bad.”

Marcus held his hand out for the weapon. “I think it’s probably best if we leave it here. It’s obviously dangerous.”

“No way!” Nadia snatched the weapon away from his outstretched grip and held it to her chest as if it were her first . “There are predators about and this thing shoots magic- It’s mine! I just need practice.”

Marcus rolled his eyes.

“Fine, but just… here.” He reached over and picked up one of the belts hanging off the wall. It had two holsters strapped to it and one of them was empty. He handed it to her and she took it, then looked up at him.

“What about you?” She asked.

“Eh, I’d rather have a longsword in my hands,” he shrugged. “Magic’s not my forte.” The bemusement in his tone made her smile.

“Well, let’s look around and see if we can find anything else useful.” She said.

They explored the rest of the room and ended up finding a few suits of what she could only describe as ancient armor. They changed out of their burlap outfits on either side of a case of armor and when they were finished, they looked at each other. Nadia raised an amused eyebrow at the pair of them.

“We look like idiots.” She said, looking down at herself. “And this fabric is riding up my ass.”

Marcus chuckled and the two of them left the room to continue their investigation, now armed, or at least one of them was armed.

”Would you rather go back to the itchy burlap?” He asked her.

“No.” She said immediately, to more chuckling from her bodyguard.

They were walking slow down the hallways, checking around corners before continuing. The run in with that creature had turned them paranoid. The rest of the complex seemed pretty standard and kind of confusing. It was all so different from what they were familiar with and Nadia was having problems especially because none of this stuff matched any of the civilizations she had been taught about. Nothing here was familiar. Give her a Renka Puzzle Box and she could solve it in minutes, but this? This place was bizarre. They were passing through a large open atrium when Nadia felt Marcus catch her arm.

“What?” She asked as she looked at him.

“Do you get the feeling we forgot something?” He asked.

“Um… no? What do you-”

Then she gasped and dread filled her. There was a predator roaming the area and the third member of their party was unarmed and unaware of the danger. One look at Marcus’s face said he had come to the same conclusion.

“LILY!” They shouted in unison.

**Author's Note:**

> hooo boy, I'm so nervous about putting this here. I put a lot of effort into writing this story. I want to have it be published eventually, but for now, it will be here. Call it a social experiment. I want to see how many people would be interested in reading this book if it were to ever hit the shelves. For that matter, don't be surprised if the version that hits the shelves isn't the same as the one you read here. Most likely, this is the first draft and It will be revised somewhat before I publish it. I will be taking any constructive criticism to heart. :3
> 
> Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to give my little story a read.


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